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

5. The People

In order to establish a proper, self-sustaining colony on Mars, you need more than a couple hundred brave souls. According to Musk's calculations, that's somewhere in the region of a million people.

This can't just be limited to astronauts either, as an entire cross section of society will need to be represented in order for it to function autonomously. As well as technicians and scientists, you'll also need everyone from plumbers to childminders to make it a colony and not a base.

So, to build a million-strong colony, with each ship able to take 100 people, you need a thousand ships. These ships would be able to set off every two years or so, when the Earth and Mars are at the closest points in their orbits. By Musk's calculations, this means that we could get everyone there in the next 40 - 100 years which, in case you hadn't done the maths, is within a lot of our lifetimes.

During the Q&A section of his presentation, Musk assured us that he intends that anyone would be able to take the trip ... provided they can stump up the funds, which brings us onto our next point.