Elisha Sauers Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the clouds. Through 17 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for public records requests. She previously worked for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland. Her work has earned numerous state awards, including the Virginia Press Association's top honor, Best in Show, and national recognition for narrative storytelling. For each year she has covered space, Sauers has won National Headliner Awards, including first place for her Sex in Space series. Send space tips and story ideas to [email protected] Share on Flipboard SpaceX founder Elon Musk delivers an update on the company's plans to go to Mars at Starbase in Texas. The talk was recorded and posted to X, a social platform also owned by Musk, on May 29, 2025. Credit: SpaceX / X screenshot SpaceX's billionaire founder Elon Musk says that despite Starship setbacks, the space company hasn't taken its eyes off the ball — and that ball is big, red, and roughly 140 million miles away. In a 42-minute video posted to X on Thursday evening, Musk laid out a plan to launch the mammoth spacecraft to Mars for the first time as early as next year. His ultimate vision has been to use a fleet of Starships to send 1 million humans to Mars by 2050. To be clear, he doesn't just want to visit the planet; he wants to establish a permanent, independent city there. You May Also Like The new timeline is hard to fathom, especially for those who watched another Starship prototype explode this week. Though the ship reached space during the test, it failed to achieve many of its goals. Musk has earned a reputation for wildly underestimating schedules — he once aimed to send an uncrewed ship to Mars by 2018 — but that didn't stop him from presenting yet another ambitious timeline. "If we have two planets, we keep going," he said. "We can be out there among the stars, making science fiction no longer fiction." Here are the key takeaways from Musk’s latest Mars update: SEE ALSO: