How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars – Wait But Why

This is Part 3 of a four-part series on Elon Musks companies. For an explanation of why this series is happening andhow Musk is involved, start with Part 1.

Pre-Post Note: I started working on this post ten weeks ago. When I started, I neverintended for it to become such an ordeal. But like theTesla post, I decided as I researched that this was A) a supremely important topic that will only become more important in the years to come, and B) something most people dont know nearly enough about.My weeks of research and discussions with Musk and others built me an in-depth, tree-trunk understanding of whats happening in what Im calling The Story of Humans and Spaceone that has totally reframed my mental picture of the future (yet again). And as I planned out what to include in thepost, I wanted to make sure every Wait But Why reader ended up with the same foundation moving forwardbecause with everything thats coming, were gonna need it.So like the Tesla post, this post became a full situation. Even the progress updatesleading upto its publication became a full situation.

Thanks for your patience. I know youd prefer this not to be a site that updates every two months, and I would too. The Tesla and SpaceX posts were special cases, and you can expect a return to more normal-length WBW posts now that theyre done.

About the post itself: There are three main parts. Part 1 provides the context and background, Part 2 explores the Why part of colonizing Mars, and Part 3 digs into the How. To make reading this post as accessible as possible, its broken into five pages, each about the length of a normal WBW post, and you can jump to any part of the post easily by clicking the links in the Table of Contents below.Were alsotrying two new things, both coming in the next couple days:

1) PDF and ebook options:We made a fancy PDF of this post for printing and offline viewing (see a preview here), and an ebook containing the whole four-part Elon Musk series:

There are two versions of the PDF: Normal and G-Rated. The G-Rated version is totally clean and appropriate for all ages. The PDF cost covers both versions.

2) An audio version. You can find an unabridged audio version of the post, read by me, as well as a discussion about the post between Andrew and mehere.

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Contents

Part 1: The Story of Humans and Space

Part 2: Musks Mission

Part 3: How to Colonize MarsPhase 1: Figure out how to put things into space Phase 2: Revolutionize the cost of space travel Phase 3: Colonize Mars

A SpaceX Future

2365 AD, Ganymede

One more day untildeparture. It was so surrealto picture actuallybeingthere that she still didnt really believe it would happen. All those things she had always heard aboutbuildings that were constructed hundreds ofyears before the first human set foot on Ganymede;animals the size ofa house; oceans the size of her whole world; tropical beaches; the famous blue sky; thegiant sun thats so close it can burn your skin; and the weirdest partno Jupiterhovering overhead. Having seen it all in so many movies, she felt like she was going tovisit a legendarymovie set. It was too much to think about all at once. For now, she just had to focus on makingsure she had everything she neededand saying goodbye to everyoneit wouldbe a long time before she wouldsee them again

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Part 1: The Story of Humans and Space

About six million years ago, a very important female great ape had two children. One of her children would go on to become the common ancestor of all chimpanzees. The other wouldgivebirth to a line that would one day include the entire human race.While the descendants of her first child wouldend up being pretty normal and monkey-ish, as time passed, strange things began to happenwith the lineage of the other.11 click these

Were not quite sure why, but over the next six million years, our ancestral line started to do something no creatures on Earth had ever done beforethey woke up.

It happened slowly and gradually through the thousands of generations the same wayyour brain slowly comes to inthe first few seconds after you rousefrom sleep. But as the clarity increased, our ancestors started to look around and, for the very first time,wonder.

Emerging froma 3.6-billion-year dream, life on Earth had its first questions.

What is this big room were in, and who put us here? What is that bright yellow circle on the ceiling and where does it go every night? Where does the ocean end and what happens when you get there? Where are all the dead people now that theyre not here anymore?

We had discoveredour species great mystery novelWhere Are We?and we wanted to learn how to read it.

As the light of human consciousness grew brighter and brighter, we began to arrive atanswers that seemed to make sense.Maybe we were on top of afloating disk, and maybe that disk was on top of a huge turtle. Maybe the pinpricks of light above us at night are a glimpse into what lies beyond this big roomand maybe thats where we go when we die. Maybe if we can find the place where the ceiling meets the floor, we can poke our heads through and see all the super fun stuff on the other side.2

Around 10,000 years ago,isolated tribes of humans began to merge together and form the first cities. In larger communities, people were able to talk to each other about this mystery novel we had found, comparing notes across tribes and through the generations. As the techniques for learning became more sophisticated and the clues piled up, new discoveries surfaced.

The world was apparently a ball, not a disk. Which meant that the ceiling was actually a larger sphere surrounding us. The sizes ofthe other objects floating out there in the sphere with us, and the distances between them, were vaster than we had ever imagined. And then, something upsetting:

The sun wasnt revolving around us. We were revolving around the sun.

This was asuperunwarm, unfuzzy discovery. Why the hell werent we in the center of things?What did that mean?

Where are we?

The sphere was already unpleasantlybigif we werent in the center of it, were we just on a random ballinside of it, kind of for no apparent reason? Could this really be what was happening?

Scary.

Then things got worse.

It seemed that the pinpricks of light on the edge of the sphere werent what we thought they werethey were other suns like ours. And they were out there floating just like our sunwhich meanswe werent inside of a sphere at all. Not only was our planet not the center of things, even oursunwas just a random dude out there, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothingness.

Scary.

Our sun turned out to be a little piece of something much bigger. A beautiful, vast cloud of billionsof suns. The everything of everything.

At least we had that. Until we realized that it wasnt everything, it was this:

Darkness.

Thebetterour tools and understanding became, the more we could zoom out, and the more we zoomed out, the more things sucked. We were deciphering the pages of Where Are We?at our own peril, and we had deciphered our way right into the knowledgethatwere unbelievably alone, living on a lonely island inside a lonely island inside a lonely island, buried in layers ofisolation, with no one to talk to.

Thats our situation.

In the most recent 1% of our species short existence, we have becomethe first life on Earth to know about the Situationand wevebeen having a collective existential crisis ever since.

You really cant blame us. Imagine not realizing that the universe is a thing andthen realizing the universe is a thing. Its alotto take in.

Most of ushandle itbylivingin a pleasantdelusion,pretending that the only place we live is in an endless land of colors and warmth. Were likethis guy, whos doing everything he possibly can to ignore the Situation:3

And our best friend for this activity? The clearblue sky. The blue sky seems like it was inventedto help humans pretend the Situation doesnt exist, serving as the perfect whimsicalbackdrop to shield us from reality.

Thennighttime happens,and theres the Situation, staring us right in the face.

Oh yeah

This la-di-da oh yeah la-di-da oh yeah merry-go-round of psychosis was, for most of recent history, the extent of our relationship with the Situation.

But in the last 60 years, that relationship has vaulted to a whole new level.DuringWorld War II, missile technology leapt forward,2 and for the first time, a new, mind-blowingconcept was possible

Space travel.

For thousands of years, The Story of Humans and Space had been the story of staring out and wondering. The possibility of peopleleaving our Earth island and venturing out into spaceburst openthe human spirit of adventure.

I imagine a similar feeling in the people of the 15th century, during the Age of Discovery, when we wereworking our way through the world map chapterofWhere Are We?and the notion of cross-ocean voyagesdazzledpeoples imaginations. If you asked a child in 1495 what they wanted to be when they grew up, an ocean explorer would probably have been a common response.

In 1970, if you asked a child the same question, the answer would be, an astronauti.e.a Situation explorer.

WWII advanced the possibility of human space travel, but it was in late 1957, when the Soviets launched the first man-made object into orbit, the adorableSputnik 1, that space travel became thedefining quest of the worlds great powers.

At the time, the Cold War was in full throttle, and the US and Soviets had their measuring sticksout for an internationally-televised penis-measuring contest. With the successful launch of Sputnik, the Soviet penis bolted outby a few centimeters, horrifying the Americans.

To the Soviets, putting a satellite into spacebefore the US was proof that Soviet technology was superior to Americantechnology, which in turn was put forward as proof, for all the world to see, that communism was a system superior to capitalism.

Eight months later,NASA was born.

The Space Race had begun, and NASAs first order of business would be to get a maninto space, and then a man into full orbit, preferably both before the Soviets. The US was not to be shown up again.

In 1959, NASA launched Project Mercury to carry out the mission. They were on the verge of successwhen in April of 1961, the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin into a full orbit around the Earth, making the first human in space and in orbit a Soviet.

It was time for drastic measures. John F. Kennedys advisors told him that the Soviets had too big a lead for the US to beat them atany near-term achievementsbut that the prospect of a manned moon landing was far enough in the future that the US had a fighting chance to get there first. So Kennedy gave his famous we choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hahhd speech, and directed an outrageous amount of fundingat the mission ($20 billion, or $205 billion in todays dollars).

The result was Project Apollo. Apollos missionwas to land an American on the moonand to do itfirst. The Soviets answered with Soyuz, their own moon program, and the race was on.

As the early phases of Apollo started coming together, Project Mercury finally hit its stride.Just a month after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, American astronaut Alan Shepard became the second man in space, completing alittle arc that didnt put him in full orbit but allowed him to give space a high-five at the top of the arc.A few months later, in February of 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.

The next sevenyears saw 22 US and Soviet manned launches as the superpowers honed their skills and technology. By late 1968, the furiously-sprinting US had more total launches under their belt (17) than the Soviets (10), andtogether, the two nationshad mastered what we call Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

But LEOhadnt really excitedanyonesince the early 60s. Both powers had their sights firmly set on the moon.The Apollo program was making quick leaps, and in December of 1968, the US became the first nation to soar outside of LEO. Apollo 8 made it all the way to the moons orbitandcircled around 10times before returning home safely. The crew, which includedJames Lovell (who a few months laterplayed the role of Tom Hanks on the Apollo 13 mission), shattered the human altitude record and became the first people to see the moon up close, the first to see the dark side of the moon, and the first to see the Earth as a whole planet, snapping this iconicphoto:4

Upon return, the crew became Americas most celebrated heroeswhich I hope they enjoyed for eight months. Three Apollo missions later, in July of 1969, Apollo 11 made Americans Neil Armstrong3and Buzz Aldrin the first humans on the moon, and Armstrong took this famous photo of Aldrin looking all puffy:5

Its hard to fully emphasize what a big deal thiswas. Ever since life on Earth began 3.6 billion years ago, no earthly creature had set foot on any celestialbody other than the Earth. Suddenly, there are Armstrong and Aldrin, bouncing aroundanothersphere, looking up in the sky where themoon is supposed to be and seeing the Earth instead. Insane.

Project Apollo proved to be a smashing success. Not only did Apolloget a man onthe moon before the Soviets, the program sent10 more men to the moon over the next 3.5 years on five other Apollo missions. There were six successful moon trips in seven tries, with the famous exception being Apollo 13, which was safely aborted after an explosion in the oxygen tank.4

The Soviet Soyuz programkept running into technical problems, and it never ended up putting someoneon the moon.

The final Apollo moonwalk took place in late 1972. In only one decade, we had conquered nearby space, and progress was accelerating. If at that time you had asked any American, or any other human, what the coming decadesof space travel would bring, theyd have made big, bold predictions. Many more people on the moon, a permanent moon base, people on Mars, and beyond.

So you can only imagine how surprised theyd be if you told them in 1972, after just watching 12 humans walk on the moon, that 43 years later, in the impossibly futuristic-sounding year 2015, the number of people to set foot on the moonwould still be 12. Or that after leaving Low Earth Orbit in the dust years earlier and using it now as our pre-moon trip parking lot, 2015 would roll around and LEO would be the farthest out humans would ever go.

1972 peoplewould be blown away by our smart phones and our internet, but theyd be just asshocked that we gave up on pushing our boundaries in space.

So what happened? After such a wildlyexciting decade of human space adventure, why did we just stop?

Well, like we foundin the Tesla post, Why did we stop? is the wrong question. Instead, we should ask:

Why were we ever adventurousabout sending humans into space in the first place?

Space travel is unbelievably expensive.National budgets are incredibly tight. The fact is, its kind of surprising that a nation everponied up asizable chunk of itsbudgetfor the sake of adventure and inspiration and pushing our boundaries.

Andthats actually because no nationdidblow their budget for the sake of adventure and inspiration andpushing our boundariestwo nations blew their budgets because of a penislength contest. In the face of internationalembarrassment at a time when everyone was trying to figure out whose economic system was better, the US government agreed to drop the usual rules for a few years to pour whatever resources were necessary on the problem to make sure they won that argument

And once they won it, the contest was over and so were the special rules. And the USwent back to spending money like a normalperson.6

Instead of continuing to push the limitsat all costs, the US and the Soviets got a grip, put their pants back on, shook hands, and started working together like adults on far more practical projects, like setting up a joint space station in LEO.

In the four decades since then, the Story of Humans and Space has again become confined to Earth, where we find ourselves with two primary reasons to interact with space (Note: the next whole chunk of the post isa slight diversion for an overview on satellites, space probes, and space telescopes. If that doesnt excite you, I wont be hurt if you skip down to the International Space Stationsection):

1)Support for Earth Industries

The first and primary reasonhumans have interacted with space since the Apollo program isnt about human interest in space. Its about using space for practical purposes in support of industries on Earthmostly in the form of satellites. The bulk of todays rocket launches into space are simply putting things intoLEOwhose purpose is to lookback down at Earth, not to the great expanses in the other direction.

Heres a little satellite overview:

Satellites Blue Box

We dont think about them that often, but above us are hundreds offlying robots that play a large part in our lives on Earth.In 1957, lonely Sputnik circled the Earth by itself, but today, the worlds of communication, weather forecasting, television, navigation, and aerial photography all rely heavily on satellites, as do many national militaries and government intelligence agencies.

The total market for satellite manufacturing, the launches that carry them to space, and related equipment and services has balloonedfrom $60 billion in 2004 to over $200 billion in 2015.Satellite industry revenue today makes up only 4% of the global telecommunications industry but accounts forover 60% of space industry revenue.7

Heres how the worlds satellites breakdown by role (in 2013):8

Go here to see the original:
How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars - Wait But Why