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It's not going to happen by then. Musk is trying to provoke a greater interest in space exploration. He has done the same for electric cars. This may lead to greater public funding for NASA, and more private investment for things like SpaceX. So I never take Musk's timing statements literally, but his hype-mode is an intrinsic part of him realising his vision, sooner or later that is.

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>> Musk is trying to provoke a greater interest in space exploration.

He is trying to build a market for his services. He doesn't want to finance Mars himself. He want the public to get Nasa to pay for his company to send things/people into space. I'll believe his lofty intentions when I see a SpaceX-financed probe go to Mars, or the moon, or basically anywhere other than to fulfil a contract.

It seems very hard to get people involved in a project like that in the current world, there is no common enemy to unite us and even if it's possible most people feel that they won't be a part of it in any meaningful sense. And I doubt that Trickle-down-technology is going to be enough to get people interested.

But who knows, the current world is young and we still don't know the direction it will take, maybe common projects come back in a meaningful way at some point.

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