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Humans could travel to Mars as early as 2024 with the aim of building a colony on the red planet, Elon Musk has claimed. Musk's space exploration company SpaceX has laid out ambitious plans to establish a base on Mars after it unveiled a reusable rocket that it said could travel at speeds of up to 27,000 kilometres per hour (16,777 mph). SpaceX said it would be able to establish a base on the moon and fly two cargo missions to Mars in 2022 that would be able to find water and place power and life support infrastructure. The first human travellers would depart in 2024, where they would be able to set up a solar-powered plant that would produce propellant to return them to earth. Crucially, the rockets would land vertically, meaning they can be re-used for other missions.