MANKIND will walk on Mars in less than a decade in humanity's "greatest ever adventure", a space boss has pledged.
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THE RED PLANET: Elon Musk, top right, says SpaceX will put mankind on mars by 2025
Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX builds rockets for NASA, revealed plans for flights to begin to the red planet by 2025.
And he said it offered humans their best shot at building a "self-sustaining city" in an echo of the classic sci-fi film Total Recall.
It comes after the European Space Agency set out plans to build a town on the moon by 2030 as its initial stop on the way to Mars.
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SCI-FI: Musk envisions a city on Mars – an idea used in the Schwarzenegger film Total Recall
Musk revealed the plans at a conference in Hong Kong and said getting people to Mars could prove crucial to our survival.
He said: "It's really a fundamental decision we need to make as a civilisation. What kind of future do we want?
"Do we want a future where we're forever confined to one planet until some eventual extinction event? However far in the future that might occur.
"Or do we want to become a multi-planet species? And then ultimately be out there among the stars and be among many planets and many star systems."
"I think the latter is a far more exciting and more inspiring future than the former," he added.
Musk, who made his billions as boss of web firm PayPal, also spoke of the importance of building a city on Mars.
He has previously suggested nuking the red planet in a bid to make its freezing surface habitable for humans.
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NEW START: Musk said Mars offered our best shot at building a city in space
"Mars is the next natural step," he said. "In fact, it's the only planet we really have a shot at establishing a self-sustaining city on.
"And I think when we do establish such a city there will be a strong forcing function for the improvement of space flight technology.
"That will then enable us to establish colonies elsewhere in the solar system and ultimately extend beyond our solar system."
The 44-year-old, who is worth $12.4billion, revealed his timeline for putting men on mars at the StartmeupHK Festival.
He told a stunned crowd: "In terms of the first flights to Mars we're hoping to do that in around 2025 – sort of nine years from now, thereabouts."
And he announced he would unveil a next-generation spacecraft capable of doing the job later this year.
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He said: "I find what gets me more excited is the fact that this would be an incredible adventure. In fact the greatest adventure ever.
"It would be exciting and inspiring and there need to be things that excite and inspire people.
"Reasons why you get up in the morning can't just be solving problems, it's gotta be something great is going to happen in the future."
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