SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveils plans to send humans to the moon and Mars by 2024 at the International Astronautical Congress

It’s official: not content with pioneering reusable rockets and re-stocking the International Space Agency, Elon Musk now wants to use SpaceX to let people travel to the moon and start colonising Mars.

During a 40-minute presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide this morning, it was revealed that SpaceX will start making smaller rockets which are cheaper to launch to solve its funding issues.

This would mean real progress for SpaceX, founded in 2002 with the objective to make humans a “multiplanetary” species.

Musk also plans to innovate commercial travel, with the development of a rocket which will let people travel anywhere in the world in less than an hour, including flying London to New York in half an hour (lest we forget, he is also the brains behind the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet terrestrial transport idea Hyperloop).

Musk – who is also the CEO of Tesla Motors – spoke last year about his plans to relocate a million people to Mars. He is planning to launch the first rocket there in 2022, and in 2024 will send four ships there, although only two will have a crew.

Musk said: “I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”

The rocket, code named “BFR”, has gone through a series of tests: Musk claims it has a landing reliability on par with the safest commercial airliners.

These rockets are hoped to be able to carry out scientific research and deep space exploration.

Musk said: “I don’t call it a breakthrough, but a realisation.”

SpaceX has previously worked with NASA passing Cargo to the International Space Station.