Elon Musk: I'll Put a Human On Mars By 2026

An anonymous reader writes Elon Musk says that he'll put the first human boots on Mars well before the 2020s are over. "I'm hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years, I think it's certainly possible for that to occur," he said. "But the thing that matters long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary." He acknowledged that the company's plans were too long-term to attract many hedge fund managers, which makes it hard for SpaceX to go public anytime soon. "We need to get where things a steady and predictable," Musk said. "Maybe we're close to developing the Mars vehicle, or ideally we've flown it a few times, then I think going public would make more sense."

Comments

Science Fiction

[mfh]

I was mentioning this yesterday as a good source of science fiction. Of course it would be pretty awesome to be able to colonize Mars, but we're not there yet and putting a human being there unless there is a real reason to do so is wasteful and a safety risk. Perhaps there is a reason to learn how to send a person to Mars, but it ultimately seems to be tied to the downward spiral the Earth has entered. Global warming, flooding, another potential ice age, wars... etc. Tesla wanted to try and reverse the situation by getting everyone driving electric cars instead of combustion engines that drive global warming further. The fact Musk is expanding into space travel should tell you something. He sees that Earth is in real jeopardy and he also appears to know when the shit hits the fan. To what extent is our fate reversible? What factors would be irreversible? Human greed? Corruption?