7 Things You Need To Know About SpaceX's Plan To Put A Million People On Mars

6. The Gear

The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) will essentially be a bigger, better version of the Falcon 9 rocket. That's the one that, er, exploded recently.

The booster will be powered by 42 Raptor engines, capable of providing 230 metric tons of thrust each. The spaceship itself will be equipped with a further nine of these engines to power it through interplanetary space.

The actual ship itself, the bit that will land on Mars, would not only have enough room for 100 passengers but, in Musk's vision of the future, cinemas, lecture halls and a restaurant. Elon Musk even joked that he would name the first ship the Heart of Gold, after the luxurious ship from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The major feature of all of this gear, and the one that makes it so revolutionary compared to anything that has come before, is that it is reusable. The boosters, rather than falling to Earth and crashing into the sea, will turn around and land themselves neatly back on the launchpad after blasting their payload into orbit.

This last feature is the most important in ensuring that the people who can afford to go to Mars are not just billionaires with private islands, but more ordinary folk, maybe even you.