Elon Musk wants to build a transit system that lets humans tour the entire Solar System

Elon Musk today announced plans for a giant rocket and spaceship that will theoretically be capable of sending humans to Mars. The theory, according to him, is that we could find a way to colonize Mars in just a century or two. In typical Musk fashion, he wasn't done there. During the latter stages of his presentation, the SpaceX CEO explained why he decided on Twitter a few weeks ago to rename the Mars Colonial Transporter to the "Interplanetary Transport System" — he wants the ITS to go so much farther beyond Mars.

Musk says under 5 percent of SpaceX is working on Mars mission, 2024 launch is ‘optimistic’
“Less than 5 percent of SpaceX resources are working on planetary transport stuff,” he said. “So it is very much a secondary or tertiary priority to understanding exactly what happened on the last mission.”

“The pace of progress on Mars depends upon the pace of progress of SpaceX,” he explained. “Our success rate with Falcon 9 is roughly 93 percent — it needs to be a lot better. We need to get Falcon Heavy launched finally, Dragon 2, and make sure we manage the company such that we’ve got sufficient cash flow and funds while it’s developing — and of course, I will supplement that personally.”