His main motivation was about making humanity a multiplanetary species, largely as a means of ensuring humanity's continuation. It sounds hyperbolic, but Earth has gone through multiple mass extinction events and we're rather overdue for another. And while those mass extinction events were all natural, there's also endless ways you can imagine us all managing to kill ourselves off. And, critically, all of these hyperbolic scenarios will seem extremely improbable up to the very day that one does inevitably happen. So the best time to start would be 50 years ago. But the second best time would be right now.
So the most logical place to start for this sort of 'humanity guarantee' would be Mars, which shares an oddly large amount in common with Earth. There's a verbose (and rather entertaining read) with lots of first party commentary here. [1]
So the most logical place to start for this sort of 'humanity guarantee' would be Mars, which shares an oddly large amount in common with Earth. There's a verbose (and rather entertaining read) with lots of first party commentary here. [1]
[1] - https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-introduction.html