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Elon Musk has volunteered to donate his sperm to help colonize Mars as SpaceX continues to work towards its goal of reaching the planet.
Musk, 53, has told SpaceX employees over the last year to begin putting together the design and details of a city on Mars, according to a report in The News York Times. The plans include dome habitats for residents and spacesuits to protect against the conditions on Mars. A medical team is also working to determine if residents could have children there.
Musk has expressed an interest in creating his own species on the planet, the Times reported. Those plans could involve Musk using his sperm to help seed a colony.
The tech billionaire responded to the report on Thursday evening, denying the claims in a post on his platform X.
“I have not fwiw [for what it’s worth] ‘volunteered my sperm’,” he wrote, adding a crying laughing face emoji.
“No one at SpaceX has been directed to work on a Mars city. When people have asked to do so, I’ve said we need to focus on getting there first.”
People aren’t likely to land on Mars anytime soon. Musk has previously said that it could take anywhere from 40 to 100 years to form a self-sustaining civilization on the red planet.
Still, he told employees in April that he expects one million people to be living on the planet in 20 years. He is so committed to the plan that he has said that he intends to die on the planet. Musk has also said that he is only accumulating wealth for his Mars dream. The entrepreneur is worth $262bn and is expected to receive a $47bn pay package from Tesla this year.
“There’s high urgency to making life multi-planetary,” he reportedly said. “We’ve got to do it while civilization is so strong.”
The Independent has contacted SpaceX for comment.
No human has ever been to Mars, and NASA had previously said that people won’t be landing on the planet until 2040. It’s not clear if Mars could ever become habitable.
Mars has barren terrain, icy temperatures, dust storms and humans are unable to breathe the air. In 2018, SpaceX employees met with university researchers in Colorado to determine how life could be sustained on Mars. Plans include harvesting ice to make water and scouting out where best to build a colony.
The Times reported that a majority of the companies Musk owns are involved in making his Mars vision come to life. Musk’s Boring Company could work to drill into the planet’s surface and social media platform X could help determine how a civilization could be governed on Mars. Tesla could provide cars, which Musk has said could look like cyber trucks.
Yet some are at odds on whether Musk’s vision for a million people on Mars could become a reality. Aerospace Engineer Robert Zubrin told The Times: “You can’t just land one million people on Mars.”
Musk has other commitments to contend with before attempting a Mars mission. SpaceX is contractually obligated to send one rocket to the moon, two people told the Times. It’s not clear what the deadline is for that plan. SpaceX is under a $2.9bn contract with NASA to make that happen.
