WhyMars

Fundamentally there are two reasons to go to Mars

1/ To preserve life, in a sense a form of life insurance from catastrophic events,such as comet strikes.

2/

The positive motivation is that it will be the greatest adventure ever. – Even for individuals who don’t want to go. Just as when we went to the moon, it was only a handful of people who went, but in a sense all of humanity went there with them

But the overarching reason is that humanity needs to be on the path to becoming a multi-planet species, and to establishing life as we know it in more than one place.

Elon is hopeful that we can do it with considerably better life expectancy than the original English colonists in America.

"I mean, you did not want to be part of Jamestown! It was awful – they died of every conceivable thing you could imagine and were obliterated.

But eventually we got America. Which, you know, is far from perfect, but on balance a force for good."