At this point, most of the world already knows about the ambitious project by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to send people to colonize Mars. Now, NASA is joining in, with the expected backing of the entire US government. Congress just passed a resolution that not only provides the agency more funding but also gives it clear orders that people need to be on the red planet by 2033.

With this new order, the mission to Mars has just rocketed to the top of NASA’s list of long-term goals. The resolution outlined exactly what the agency is supposed to do with the new budget it was given, from improving space exploration activities to finding ways to actually colonize Mars.

In a rather rare twist within the political sphere, it doesn’t seem like the current administration is going to oppose this order either. Both democrats and republicans are in agreement that humanity needs to be able to leave the Earth and go populate another planet if they are going to survive the calamities brought about by climate change.

“It is the sense of Congress that expanding human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and advancing toward human missions to Mars in the 2030s requires early strategic planning and timely decisions to be made in the near-term on the necessary courses of action for commitments to achieve short-term and long-term goals and objectives,” the bill reads.

One of the things that are bound to make this endeavor a lot easier is the roadmap that NASA has already prepared for Congress to look at. The plan is reasonably comprehensive and provides a lot of hope that this goal is actually achievable, Futurism reports. This plan also puts the US on common grounds with other nations who are also hell bent on getting people off this planet and into another one.