1. What Then?
In 2013, Buzz Aldrin described the moon landings as "not a destination but more a point of departure, one that places humankind on a trajectory to homestead Mars and become a two-planet species." If the moon landings were a stepping stone to Mars, it makes you wonder what Mars will lead us to. When Elon Musk was asked what a Mars colony would mean, he responded: If we can establish a Mars colony, we can almost certainly colonise the whole Solar System, because well have created a strong economic forcing function for the improvement of space travel. Well go to the moons of Jupiter, at least some of the outer ones for sure, and probably Titan on Saturn, and the asteroids. Once we have that forcing function, and an Earth-to-Mars economy, well cover the whole Solar System. Colonising Mars wouldn't so much be an end point in itself, as a springboard for the next phase of our species. Who knows, people might talk about the day we took the big leap out into the stars in the same way we talk about the invention of agriculture or the Industrial Revolution today. The idea of a colony on another planet seems pretty out there today, but that's largely because we've never done it before. Once we become a species that can survive on Mars, what's stopping us from doing it again? As Musk said, we could go to the moons of one of the gas giants, or we could even have a crack at Venus if we get this terraforming thing down. However and whenever we do it, it looks like the sky is no longer the limit for the human race.
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