The Next Generation is Going to Mars

When "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" has a solution.

Originally published on June 26, 2017

Some days I get hit with a “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore” moment. There’s a questionable climate, wars, poverty, never ending bipartisan politics, and your average dumb people. But pretty soon, if you really wanted to (and had the cash), you could hop over to a different planet. Mars, to be exact, and within the next few decades, according to Elon Musk.

The biggest obstacle in all of this is the cost. Right now the cost of sending only one person to Mars would be upwards of $10 billion. This is of course too much for any country to afford and not at all reasonable. No one would pay for that, on top of sending all the supplies any person would need while on Mars. But if the cost could get down to between $100,000 and $200,000, people would be more willing to go (this is the median price of a house in the U. S., after all). This could happen if there was a system of refueling in orbit of Mars for the ships who are going back to Earth.

The end goal of all of this is to create a city on Mars with a population of one million people. He is designing the rocket and spaceship that will get people there, 100 people at a time. As technology improves, the trip would only take about 30 days in the near future. He is confident that the trip would be fun, but the colony on Mars would be even more fun. His spaceship would have all sorts of entertainment and zero-gravity games. I’m picturing it like a cruise ship in space (with a permanent destination. A permanent vacation!). Mars would be a city, a small civilization, a fraction of Earth’s population a planet away with a slice of Earth’s culture.

Elon Musk’s grand plan has people on Mars by 2023. That’s only 6 years away. NASA’s plan is to start with the Moon and then move on to Mars. Musk’s argument for skipping the Moon and going straight to Mars is the length of day is only slightly longer than on Earth, the sunlight and atmosphere can be used to support plant life, and the gravity would of course be less than Earth’s, so lifting and running would be much easier and even fun. I think that whatever gets humans off this planet and onto another celestial body will be good. I won’t pretend to be a scientist. I don’t know if these plans are possible, or if there will be resistance by governments when it comes to permission or funding. I just can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

The future is a lot closer than we think. Even though I won’t be leaving this world, I am highly looking forward to watching other people go where no man has gone before.