Elon Musk's Vision for Mars: A Backup Plan for Humanity Elon Musk's plan to colonize Mars as a "backup plan" for humanity has sparked both intrigue and debate. His vision, articulated since 2007, aims to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars to ensure human survival as the sun's expansion threatens Earth in about 1 billion years. However, scientific consensus suggests Earth's habitability may end much sooner, within 500 million to 1.5 billion years, due to increasing solar brightness and lo