Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commissions or revenue on some articles through the links below. Elon Musk’s ambition to establish a self-sufficient civilization of a million people on Mars faces skepticism from Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Michel Mayor, who argues that the planet’s hostile conditions make mass migration unrealistic and humanity must prioritize protecting Earth. Nobel Prize winner challenges Musk’s vision of a million people on Mars “We don’t have a Planet B. We have to take care of the Earth,” Mayor told delegates at the Starmus science festival in Tenerife, Spain, on Wednesday, challenging the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. founder’s vision of making humanity multiplanetary. Don’t miss: Advertising “Could a million people migrate to Mars in the next century?” Mayor asked, noting its thin atmosphere, frigid temperatures, radiation exposure and toxic soil. “The pressure on Mars is something like one-hundredth of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is carbon dioxide, argon, but no oxygen. Therefore, it is not at all convenient for man,” he said. NASA research into Martian conditions supports those concerns, identifying surface temperatures reaching -153 degrees Celsius and radiation exposure roughly 40 to 50 times Earth levels. Mayor argued that settlers would need pressurized structures or underground habitats to survive. SpaceX Pursues Ambitious Plans for Mars Settlement SpaceX’s published roadmap for Mars envisions transporting more than one million colonists and millions of tons of cargo using reusable Starship spacecraft. Musk previously outlined plans to dramatically increase Starship launches, with the goal of flying more than 30 missions daily by 2030. See also: Avoid the Number One Investment Mistake: How Your ‘Safe’ Holdings Could Cost You Big. He also reaffirmed his commitment to Mars despite SpaceX’s increasing focus on lunar exploration. The company’s current roadmap schedules initial cargo missions to Mars no earlier than 2028. Exoplanet pioneer warns against abandoning Earth Mayor shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics with Didier Queloz for discovering 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star, in 1995. Despite that groundbreaking discovery, Mayor ruled out distant planets as viable alternatives to Earth.AdvertisementAdvertisement”We have to take physics into account,” he said, explaining that reaching a potentially habitable planet 30 light years away using the speeds of Apollo-era spacecraft would take millions of years. His warning contrasts with Musk’s vision of making interplanetary travel accessible to ordinary people. Mayor argued that humanity cannot depend on distant worlds to survive. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock Read next: Build wealth in more than just the market Building a resilient portfolio means thinking beyond a single asset or market trend. 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Fundrise offers access to diversified private real estate and credit strategies through an easy-to-use platform, with professionally managed portfolios designed to generate passive income and long-term growth.Advertisement© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
