"It's a little cold on Mars, but we can warm it up."
The quote above is from Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and founder of SpaceX, who proposed a plan to send a million people to Mars at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico last weekend.
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The infamous billionaire outlined a complete "to-do" list for the project during his 63-minute speech, covering everything from the infrastructure of the rocket to what the job market would look like on Mars.
Why would we ever want to leave Earth, you ask? Well, according to Musk, we either must accept the end of humanity here on Earth (as history has shown that doomsday will eventually happen) or ship our most productive folk off to Mars and restart. The entire SpaceX project, in fact, is committed to finding ways of making us a "multi-planet species".
The plan, I must admit, is quite spectacular. The rocket SpaceX would use for the journey was proposed to be reusable, meaning that after it launches those one million adrenaline-junkies and/or extreme introverts into space, it will be programmed to return to the launch pad. Musk claims that "recycling a rocket over and over and learning to fly it like a plane could reduce the cost of access to space by as much as a factor of a hundred."
Additionally, Musk presented that Mars' atmosphere can be compressed, which would eventually create oceans and a thick atmosphere. The only thing that would really change would be the force of gravity, as a person who weighs 100 lbs on Earth would weigh about 37 lbs on Mars. Easiest weight loss plan EVER!
As for the population who would be living there, they would have an entire planet all to themselves. Can you imagine?
But we have to ask ourselves, is it a good idea to colonize Mars? I mean, somehow we came to be on Earth and were given everything we need. Our ecosystems work with intense precision to keep everything in existence. One has to worry that the attempt to manufacture that natural precision may result in disaster, and a loss of a million of our own. After all, we are talking about allowing the CEO who made the self-driving car that malfunctioned and killed a man, even after countless tests. Is it safe to let him also design a rocket that would take us to another planet?
We're talking about a new level of homesickness. I don't think I could ever leave the splendor of Earth, and I feel there is something wrong about abandoning a planet that has done nothing but put up with our s***. All I know is if we are really going to use Mars as a "backup" for the human race, they'd better have Wi-Fi.
