Engineer, inventor and business magnate Elon Musk will give a talk at the 67th International Aeronautical Congress (IAC), to be held at Expo Guadalajara September 26-30, in which he is expected to elaborate on his plans to colonize Mars.
“It’s a fundamental decision we have to make as a civilization,” Musk told The Observer newspaper earlier this year. “Mars is the next, natural step. In fact, it’s the only planet we really have a shot at establishing a self-sustaining city on.”
Musk is the founder and CEO of aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company SpaceX, as well as the co-founder, CEO and product architect of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors. A co-founder of PayPal, he has an estimated net worth of US$12.7 billion, making him the 83rd wealthiest person in the world.
Musk’s talk – titled “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species” – is one of the most eagerly anticipated lectures at the IAC, an event that is expected to attract more than 3,000 delegates from 78 nations.
The Guadalajara congress is being organized locally by the Mexican Space Agency (AEM) under the theme “Making space accessible and affordable to all countries.”
AEM Director Francisco Javier Mendieta Jiménez believes bringing the event to Mexico will give an additional boost to the efforts of involved emerging nations into a new era of international collaboration to solve common problems using space science and technology.
The “Heads of Agencies” plenary event is another highlight of the IAC, bringing together the leaders of the major space agencies worldwide, including Charles F. Bolden, Jr., the current administrator of NASA. This year’s talks will focus on the theme “Space Exploration: the past, present and future.”
President Enrique Peña Nieto is expected to attend the inauguration of the congress on Monday, September 26. This year’s gala dinner takes place at the Instituto Cultural Cabañas, and all the plenary events, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, will be live streamed on the IAC website at iac2016.org. See this address for more details and registration.