Mars or Bust!

SpaceX founder and rockstar guy Elon Musk wants to get humanity to Mars ASAP:

"Ultimately, the thing that is super-important in the grand scale of history is, are we on a path to becoming a multiplanet species or not?" Musk said during a talk Monday (Aug. 1) at a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in San Diego.

"If we're not, well, that's not a very bright future," Musk continued. "We'll simply be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us."…

"That's kind of how I'm judging SpaceX," said Musk, who also founded the company and serves as its chief technology officer. "Are we helping move things in that direction?"

Musk also notes that getting the rocket technology right will be "super damn hard."

Previously, Reason covered Buzz Aldrin's desire to get to the red planet.

Reason also ran an cover story by New York Times writer John Tierney on Mars as the final frontier in 1999.

For the complete Reason Mars archive, go here.