ITWire

Speaking at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, England, (as shown in the YouTube video) on November 16, 2012, Musk stated, "At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilisation and grow it into something really big."

So for only a half a million U.S. dollars, the adventure of a lifetime could be yours: a one-way trip to Mars with brand-new accommodations on the surface of the planet.

Musk adds, "The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip."

Musk also thinks that around the year 2025 will be the right time to launch the colonizing trip, the year when the world's population is expected to reach 8 billion.

However, in order to accomplish this feat, Musk realizes that the space-faring governments of the world will need to help out with building a Martian base and providing the machinery to grow food and to provide other necessities like oxygen to live on Mars.

According to the November 27, 2012 Register article Elon Musk envisions small town of VEGETARIANS ON MARS, "The first folks heading to Mars would have machines to produce fertiliser, oxygen and methane from Mars' atmosphere and subsurface water ice with them on the big booster [of the spacecraft], as well as construction materials to build big transparent domes to grow Earth crops in."

Of course, people would have to be vegetarians on this first colony on Mars because it would be too costly to transport cows, chickens, and pigs to Mars.

Page two concludes with further information on the YouTube video shown above.