“The first journey will be very dangerous, and the risk of fatality will be very high,” Musk said. “Are you prepared to die? Then you are a candidate for going.”
Life in zero-g isn’t pleasant. Astronauts lose about 1% of their bone minerals each month; shifting fluids interfere with eyesight; and they’re “likely to experience motion sickness,” according to NASA. The space agency is researching ways to overcome the various risks from gravity, isolation, artificial habitats, and radiation, but they have yet to be solved.
“These are very real issues that need to be solved before the human race is able to reach destinations beyond the earth and the moon,” Scott Kelly, the NASA astronaut who spent 340 days at the International Space Station before returning to earth in March, told the U.S. House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology in June.
The limitations of the human body, ultimately, aren’t Musk’s problem. His problems are that there’s no rocket big enough to go to Mars and not enough people with the resources and know-how who are as excited about it as he is. So he’ll build a huge rocket, and then see who emerges to help surmount the myriad obstacles that stand in his way.
By Eric Roston