We need to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars, but currently, no amount of money could get you a ticket to Mars; we need to reduce costs significantly.

To create a self-sustaining city on Mars, we need to improve the cost of transportation by at least a factor of a thousand.

A Mars city must be able to survive independently if spaceships from Earth stop coming, which means it needs all critical resources.

The biggest challenge in building a civilization on Mars is getting a large number of people there who may choose to stay permanently.

Starship is the most complex and advanced rocket ever made, and its fundamental optimization is to minimize the cost per ton to Mars.

The next big step is to get people to Mars and become a space-faring civilization.

The cost of launching payloads into orbit has drastically decreased from $50,000 per kilogram to as low as $10 to $20 with advancements like SpaceX's Starship.

I think the odds of establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony are pretty good, and I believe this can be accomplished in about 10 years, maybe sooner.

To terraform Mars, we need to raise its temperature by 6 degrees, which could trigger a self-fulfilling cycle of melting polar ice caps and releasing water vapor.