Elon Musk and the Mission to Mars

The billionaire behind Tesla Motors is fully committed to getting mankind to Mars, and intends to die there himself (though not on impact). His ambitious plan involves building a BFR (literally “big fucking rocket”) that’s reusable for multiple trips. Rockets are presently single-use, which makes them vastly inefficient and costly. He plans to build a ship capable of transporting 100 people per load, at the cost of $200,000 per person. That’s obscenely ambitious, of course, but he might just pull it off. The Economist ran an editorial decrying him this week as looking to Mars as an escape hatch for Earth, when we should be focusing on fixing our current planet. I disagree. I believe in Manifest Destiny for mankind, and that future lies in the stars. Mars is the next big leap.

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