Elon Musk gazes towards Mars as earthbound businesses hit a snag

San Francisco

WHEN Elon Musk takes the stage of the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on Sept 27, it won't be to rehash terrestrial concerns such as a fatal Tesla autopilot crash or a poorly received merger proposal. Instead, the space and electric-car entrepreneur will be talking about realising his boyhood dream: going to Mars.

Mr Musk's keynote address, titled "Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species", will tackle the technical challenges and "potential architectures for colonising the Red Planet", according to organisers. Translation: huge rockets, big spacecraft. No one has been anticipating the event more eagerly than Mr Musk, who founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp, his rocket-launch company, 14 years ago with the express goal of putting humans on other planets to live and work.