Elon Musk has ambitious plans for Mars. Are they as crazy as they sound?

The SpaceX founder has become the face of entrepreneurial space exploration - and ambition. What does the established space science community think of him?

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has set himself an ambitious timeline for the colonization of Mars. The South Africa-born magnate estimates that his private space company, SpaceX, will launch its first manned mission in 2024 - one decade sooner than Nasa's ambitions.

Musk will grace the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday, unveiling his plans to send humans to Mars in a keynote talk titled Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species. He will outline what SpaceX deems to be a "good approach" for establishing a city on the red planet.