Elon Musk's ambitious plan to turn the human race into a multi-planetary species, starting first with the colonization of Mars, will cost a lot of money. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who laid out his Mars plans today at a press conference, hopes to eventually make the cost of taking a trip to Mars equal that of the average US home, at around $200,000 per ticket. Still, there's a long road ahead to funding the complex architecture of a stable Earth-Mars transportation system.

To cement his commitment to the project, Musk says the only reason he's personally accumulating wealth — through his various ventures in renewable energy, electric cars, and space transport, is to help make this radical idea a reality. "As we show that this is possible, that this dream is real, I think the support will snowball over time," Musk said onstage today at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. "The main reason I’m personally accumulating assets is to fund this."

SpaceX trip to Mars simulation