Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, has had a long-held ambition to journey to the red planet, but now he fears that he would die before the company could make it to the planet.

Musk talked about his fear during the Satellite 2020 Conference, which was held in Washington, USA, on Monday.

Elon told the audience that rapid progress is needed so humans can head to Mars within the next few decades.

The CEO said, “The thing that concerns me most right now is that unless we improve our rate of innovation dramatically, there is no chance of a base on the moon or a city on Mars. This is my biggest concern.”

He added, “If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars… If it’s taken us 18 years just to get ready to do the first people to orbit, we’ve got to improve our rate of innovation or, based on past trends, I am definitely going to be dead before Mars.”

Elon, who is now 48 years –old, said in 2013 that he wanted to die on Mars.

In 2018, he estimated that there was a 70 percent chance of him making it to Mars in a SpaceX craft, claiming that it could be possible as early as the year 2025.

SpaceX has been at the forefront of the innovation to send humans to the red planet.

As part of their dream, the company developed the first reusable rockets that are capable of landing autonomously after launching a payload into space.

SpaceX is also in the process of building and testing the Mars-bound spacecraft, which is called the Starship.

Musk says the Starship will be rapidly reusable, claiming it can relaunch from our planet just one hour after it lands.

Talking about why it is important for humans to go to Mars, Musk said setting up a human colony on the red planet as part of their company’s overall objective as it is a vital act for the survival of humans.

Mars is 35 million miles away from planet Earth at its closest point.

Mars represents the first step of humans to travel deep in space.

But the journey will not be easy.

In order to make it habitable, humans have to reform the planet so it can have a good climate, a climate where humans can live.

To make this happen, Musk said this would be possible by blasting the poles of the red planet with nuclear weapons.

During an interview in 2014, he said, “It’s a fixer upper of a planet.”

He added, “Eventually you can transform Mars into an Earth-like planet. You’d warm it up. There’s a fast way and a slow way. The fast way is drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles.”

Why nuke mars?

The idea behind this crazy idea is that nuclear bombs free up carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which makes the air breathable, and it will also melt ice on the surface, which means water will be available.