According to Musk’s idea, colonists would directly legislate, but 40% of them would hold veto power.
In Musk’s vision, the laws on Mars would be simpler than those on Earth and would have an expiration date.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk isn’t only determined to take humanity to Mars, but he's also outlined his vision for how the Red Planet should be governed. Musk recently shared details about his plan to establish a self-sufficient city on Mars, supported by SpaceX rockets, and proposed the political system for the planet.
A Martian democracy. Although he clarifies that “governing Mars will be up to Martians,” Musk proposes a direct democracy where laws are voted on by the people, without political intermediaries.
In his vision, the laws on Mars will be short and easy to understand to avoid hidden agendas in the text. “Laws must be short, as there is trickery in length,” he said in an X post in 2018.
40% of Martians will hold veto power. Musk also believes that laws should have automatic expiration dates to prevent “stifling bureaucracy,” a concern he often expresses regarding governmental processes on Earth. During his pro-Trump campaign, he said, “Bureaucracy [is] currently choking America to death.”
Additionally, Musk proposes that any law can be revoked if 40% of the population agrees, which is a lower threshold than the traditional absolute majority. He argues that this approach would help overcome inertia and prevent bureaucratic paralysis that affects companies and communities on Earth.
Musk’s growing optimism. The SpaceX CEO is increasingly optimistic about the logistics of colonizing Mars, especially following the recent U.S. presidential election where he played an active role. He likely expects that the outcome will benefit his companies financially.
SpaceX plans to launch the first unmanned Starship spacecraft to Mars within the next two years, taking advantage of the orbital transfer windows that open every 26 months between Mars and Earth. According to Musk, these initial missions will test the feasibility of landings and lay the groundwork for future manned missions.
A self-sufficient city… with the help of Starship. “If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” Musk said in a recent X post. The goal is to assist governments that are willing to finance a self-sustaining city on Mars, as long as they pay for the Starship’s flights. Currently, the rocket’s development is self-funded through revenues from Starlink customers as well as contracts with NASA and the Pentagon.
Musk estimates that building a city capable of sustaining itself using Martian resources will take between 20 to 30 years. This endeavor will require thousands of Starship launches, which Musk claims are projected to be a thousand times more efficient than existing rockets. With this advanced technology, he believes the cost of making humanity multi-planetary could be reduced to approximately $1 trillion, a figure he considers manageable if spread over several decades.
What do the pessimists say? Despite the enthusiasm of the world’s richest man and various ideas for terraforming Mars into a habitable planet, some pessimistic planetary scientists argue that the available CO2 and water vapor on Mars is so limited that it wouldn’t be possible to achieve significant warming of the planet.
In the best-case scenario, doubling the Martian atmosphere would take around 10 million years, according to a study published in Nature Astronomy. As a result, the colonization of a terraformed Mars is much further away than previously thought. Additionally, other options, such as introducing materials via meteorites and asteroids, are currently beyond our technological capabilities.
Image | Nicolas Lobos
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