SpaceX Mars colonization program is the planned objective of the company SpaceX, and particularly of its founder Elon Musk, to send humans to live on Mars. The plan is to establish a self-sustaining, large scale settlement and democratic, self-governing colony. The motivation behind this is the belief that colonizing Mars will allow humanity to become multiplanetary, thereby ensuring the long-term survival of the human race if it becomes extinct on Earth. Colonization is to be achieved with reusable and mass-produced, super heavy-lift launch vehicles called Starship. They have been referred to as the "holy grail of rocketry" for extraplanetary colonization.