Comment by tuacker

I feel like everything Elon Musk undertakes with his companies is just one huge Mars Beta Test.

  - SpaceX:
      Obvious, got to get to space somehow  
  - Tesla:
      Build cars/machines to run on something
      that is guaranteed to exist on Mars (the sun) vs. Oil  
  - Gigafactory:
      How to build batteries 101  
  - Solar roof:
      While Earths environment may not be as
      harsh as Mars you still learn something, and improve
      solar panel production in the process  
  - Boring:
      May not make too much sense on Earth with  
      existing infrastructure, but undereart..undermars?
      transportation is protected from the environment/sand
      stroms/whathaveyou.

I also don't know about the mineral composition of Mars and what boring does to the usability of those, but this may be a 2 birds one stone: Bore underground network and get required materials to build out mars base.

How to go to Mars and stay there:

  1. Figure out what you need
  2. Build it
  3. ???
  4. Mars

Where 3. is use it, refine it, perfect it, like landing a rocket on a automated barge in the middle of the sea.

Or he just hates LA traffic.