> The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program. There will be no benefit if nobody can pay the costs. > I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is

> The benefits will dwarf the cost of the program. There will be no benefit if nobody can pay the costs. > I truly believe the whole point of going to Mars is to challenge ourselves. SpaceX does not just want to go to mars, they want to have people permanently live there. > But above everything, humans are wired to explore. The point of exploration is to discover new places and what they look like. We know what mars is and what it looks like. We're currently exploring it. Sure, bringing humans there will make us know a bit more about it, and in that sense that's still exploration, but that's very marginal an improvement over what's currently done. Also, exploration is a scientific endeavor, and as I said SpaceX's goals are clearly not just scientific. It's that non-scientific part I find insane.