Astronaut Chris Hadfield says Moon settlement is 15 years away and Mars colonisation is possible
Moon settlement will be a reality in 15 years, according to astronaut Chris Hadfield, who also said colonisation of Mars is possible.
“We are on the cusp of rewriting space travel all by visualising perfection and deciding what the next thing is we need to do to make it happen,” he said in a speech at the Festival of Marketing, held today in London.
“In 15 years we will be taking things from the space station to the moon and making settling there a reality. Then it will be past the moon. It’s a spectacular time for space travel right now.”
On the subject of a Mars colony, Hadfield told the audience of his admiration for Elon Musk, who recently suggested using nuclear explosions to create two suns over the planet – potentially making it warm enough to inhabit.
Hadfield said: “I think Elon Musk is a brilliant, relentless workaholic inventor of a guy and the world needs more people like him. Is the colonisation of Mars possible? Of course it is. It’s about the leapfrog of technology and using it to do the impossible."
Is it our only chance as a civilisation to survive? When you’ve been around the world 2,650 times like I have you see the huge scars on the earth from where it’s been pummelled by asteroid impact.
Eventually we will have another asteroid hit like the one that killed the dinosaurs…so getting all our eggs out of one basket is important.
The space traveller became famous during his time aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2012 and 2013 by tweeting about his experiences.
He also recorded and released a video of himself performing a version of David Bowie's Space Oddity while on board the ISS – and was today officially presented with a Guinness World Record certificate for the first music video recorded in space.