Mars is the new Promised Land. But is Elon Musk the new Moses?

Space X founder Elon Musk is really convinced humankind in the future will face an extinction event such as World War III or another deadly asteroid that might do to humans what the Yucatan asteroid did to the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. 

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That's why he's so passionate about colonizing Mars. That's also why he's pushing hard to reuse the first stage of his Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Reusable rockets will make successive trips to space by SpaceX quite cheap compared to what the U.S. government pays United Launch Alliance.

Musk said a Falcon 9 rocket costs about $16 million to build, but the fuel used by each of the booster costs only $200,000. That math means finding a way to re-use the first stage again and again can slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100, he pointed out.

Musk's SpaceX has already made four successful landings of a Falcon 9 first stage since April. And the company plans to re-use for the first time one of these four first stages in either September or October.

SpaceX was founded by Musk in 2002 with the ultimate aim of colonizing Mars. Musk has said establishing a Martian colony is his ultimate objective, and "always has been."

In late 2012, Musk revealed the breathtaking scope of his Martian ambition: establishing a colony of 80,000 humans on Mars. That goal will begin to be realized in 2018 when SpaceX lands a robot spacecraft on Mars. Musk expects SpaceX to land astronauts on Mars by 2025.

A colony of this size should serve to ensure the survival of humanity should a future extinction event wipe-out homo sapiens. Musk, however, is more worried about a nuclear war than an asteroid impact.

Musk believes a nuclear war will inflict such indescribable damage to the Earth as to render the planet almost uninhabitable. He argues "an extinction event is inevitable."

"I don't think we can discount the possibility of a Third World War. In 1912, they were proclaiming a new age of peace and prosperity ... and then you had World War I followed by World War II followed by the Cold War. Perhaps there's a complacency and arrogance in assuming this won't happen again."

That being the case, there's also a moral imperative for colonizing Mars.

 "It would be, I think sort of immoral not to (colonize Mars) if it meant preservation of life on Earth as we know it."

Musk, however, admitted his timetable will only be possible is almost everything goes his way. He said landing on Mars in fewer than 10 years might not be possible.

Interestingly, he said reaching the 2025 deadline not only requires everything going according to plan, but that SpaceX will have to "get lucky."

Musk, however, isn't worried about finding volunteers to make the dangerous trek to Mars. He said the Martian pioneer will find it "hard, risky, dangerous, difficult." There's also the risk of complete failure and deaths among the pioneers.

"The first mission wouldn't have a huge number of people on it because if something goes wrong, we want to risk the least number of lives as possible," he said.

He noted that "probably people will die." On the other hand, those deaths will "pave the way" toward his vision that "ultimately, it will be very safe to go to Mars, and it will be very comfortable."

TagsElon Musk, Mars, SpaceX, Falcom 9