Two weeks ago, Elon Musk highlighted what was an incredibly ambitious, challenging, and under-appreciated attempt to colonize the cosmos. With the underpinnings of his larger goal to make humans an interplanetary species, Musk took center stage to consume our fancy with an idea that only he can see to fruition: humans forming an extraterrestrial society on Mars. While several glaring questions remain, the major question is how close are we really to colonizing Mars?
Getting to Mars has been a major discussion for years. Whether it be radical inventions like the Aldrin cycler, billions of dollars in NASA funding, or high-grossing sci-fi films that entrance us, it's clear the red planet is our goal. But why?
For one, it's atmosphere, gravity, and mineral wealth are the most comparable to Earth in our solar system, and we only have to spend three months to get there. Given that we are talking about a realm where average distances take hundreds if not thousands of years to traverse, Mars seems like a pretty prudent option. Take that and couple it with Mars' abundance of frozen water, dense CO2 concentration, and geological stability, Musk and others think this could be prime-pickings for the first self-sufficient human colony. While the reason for going is partly for the sake of curiosity and good old fashion exploration, exploring Mars could also lead to huge advancements in the the fields of recycling, solar energy, food production, and medical technology.
Now let's talk about getting there. The technology actually exists already, technically speaking. However it would cost around ten billion dollars per person transported. Obviously no one has the time or resources to begin an Apollo-style mission like that. Elon Musk and SpaceX on the other hand, are developing a fleet of reusable vehicles to get us there and back, with ticket prices starting as low as $200,000. This has already garnered interest from the motley crew of Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama, and Werner Herzog. While things like health requirements, living conditions, and longevity weren't discussed, we do know the basics of the most important part -- getting there.
So what would this journey look like? It is, of course, is a multi-stage process, with the first stage being designed to launch the spacecraft into orbit. Once in space, several tankers will come to refuel the ship before making its journey to mars. The ship then arrives on Mars, dropping off colonists and necessary supplies. This then begins the chain of return, where SpaceX will use methane fuel made on Mars to refuel the ships once there, and send them to and from Earth. Musk hopes that in a few decades, we could see a million people on Mars, enough to start considering it a self-sufficient civilization.
So perhaps getting to Mars is closer than we think. Given our aggressive timetable and serious consideration of these ideas, let's take a second to ponder the sheer beauty and reality of this situation.
For hundreds of years, we've discussed the most fundamental aspects of our humanity, with our inherent purpose at the top of that list. We've told ourselves that Earth is no more than an insignificant shade of blue in the cosmos, and that nothing compares to the totality around us. And here we've finally formulated a plan to explore that vastness, and it has to be worth something. This could single-handedly be the most profound and revolutionary step we make as a species, and we should all be thrilled to witness its birth.