--- title: "Elon Musk: Mars City Could Cost Up to $10 Trillion" description: "No doubt about it, constructing a city on a planet that’s hundreds of millions of miles away is going to be hella’ expensive. In fact, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk estimates the cost to be anywhere “between $100 billion and $100 trillion,” according to a tweet from last week. To put that into perspective, Marsopolis could […]" date: "2019-08-13" modified: "2019-08-13" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-mars-city-cost-10-trillion" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Mars" - "Space" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "mars" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk: Mars City Could Cost Up to $10 Trillion ![SpaceX CEO Elon Musk estimates the cost of building a self-sustaining city on Mars to be anywhere "between $100 billion and $100 trillion."]() *\Image: SpaceX\* ## Marsopolis No doubt about it: constructing a city on a planet that's hundreds of millions of miles away is going to be hella expensive. In fact, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk estimates the cost to be anywhere "between $100 billion and $100 trillion," according to a [tweet from last week](). To put that range into perspective, Marsopolis could cost us anywhere between [10 percent]() of the United States' 2019 military budget and [three times]() the US's 2018 tax revenue. In other words, it'll a bonkers amount of cash. ## Cash Money To arrive at his estimation, Musk calculated the approximate future cost of sending a minimum payload to Mars "to nearest order of magnitude," at [$100,000]() per ton. In 2017, Musk estimated it to be closer to [$140,000 per ton](). So if a million tons of cargo are required for a self-sustaining city — [Musk said]() as much during a July interview with CBS News — the total cost would come out to about $100 billion. ## Road Ahead For SpaceX to ever get a shot at starting construction of the first-ever city on another planet, the company will have to get its Starship rocket [off the ground]() first — and that's only the beginning. If all goes well, the gigantic rocket could eventually ferry [100 tons]() of payload to Mars — if SpaceX figures out a way to refuel the rocket in Earth orbit first. **READ MORE:** [SpaceX Mars City: Here’s How Much Elon Musk's Dream Would Cost]() \[*Inverse*\] **More on Starship:** *[Elon Musk: Starship Prototypes Could Be Ready to Fly This Month]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()