PayPal co-founder announces `futuristic` Mars city bid

Elon-MuskLondon, Jan 7 : PayPal co-founder Elon Musk is planning to construct a small city on Mars for 80,000 space explorers.

The 41-year-old businessman, whose Falcon 9 rocket delivers NASA cargo to the International Space Station, said that the new civilisation would run off sustainable technology and cater only to vegetarians, the Sun reported.

Speaking to the Royal Aeronautical Society, Musk revealed that he had been waiting for ten years to share his vision.

He said that in the beginning it had seemed ridiculous as there were no rockets, no infrastructure and NASA was the only space exploratory body - and it had no schedule for exploring Mars, but with his work and many others working in the private sector, the mission had come closer to reality.

Musk asserted that on the Red Planet, people could start a self-sustaining civilisation and grow it into something that was really big.

Previously, he had spoken about sending the Mass Cargo Transport rocket - powered by liquid oxygen and methane there - carrying volunteers for about 300,000-pound-a-person.

Musk admitted that the challenges remain daunting, which included the dangers of deep-space radiation, bone-rot and toxic dust.

He recommended the size of the new society to be around 80,000 people, as too few people risked drying up of gene and culture pool and too many people risked a civil war. (ANI)