He wants to help establish a colony of up to 80,000 people on the planet, but admitted he’d like to start small, with a group of 10 people, and build the colony from there.
‘At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilisation and grow it into something really big,’ Musk said.
‘I think we’re making some progress in that direction – not as fast as I’d like.’
Musk was speaking to an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London.
In April, SpaceX carried out a successful rocket test during which the firm launched a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, after suffering three previous delays.
The rocket is reusable and it crashed into a target in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after the Dragon capsule delivered supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).