Elon Musk should only send one person to Mars to avoid contaminating the red planet, a leading scientist has said.

S paceX is planning to send five uncrewed Starships to Mars over the next few years, CEO Elon Musk said on his social media site, X. According to Musk, SpaceX has to wait for the

"Elon is really about to send Starships full of Humanoid Robots to Mars in the 2030s to start building the base isn't he?" asked Aidan Gold, a SpaceX investor. Without denying, Musk said he hopes to send millions of humans to the red planet too. "Hopefully, millions of humans too," he replied.

Mulling Martians Elon Musk's plans to become "multiplanetary" grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen. As the Wall Street Journal reports,

SpaceX successfully caught Super Heavy booster post-launch, marking a milestone in its mission to develop fully reusable rockets for lunar and Martian missions.

A top physicist has urged Elon Musk to be more cautious in his attempts to colonise Mars as he risks contaminating the Red Planet.

A scientist has spoken about Elon Musk’s ambitions to colonise Mars – and he had a stark warning for the future of space exploration. It comes after Musk announced that the first SpaceX missions to Mars aboard the next-generation Starship rocket are planned for 2026.