And for this reason, some scientists described it as the “largest load of earthly bacteria to ever enter space”.Īs it happens, the Tesla overshot its orbit. Unlike every previous craft sent to Mars, this car – and the mannequin called Starman sitting behind the wheel – had not been sterilised. A stunt, for sure – but also a marvellous demonstration of technical competence.īut not everyone was happy. Launched atop the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX hoped to shoot the Tesla into orbit with Mars. It is hard to forget the images six months ago of Elon Musk's midnight cherry Tesla floating through space. However, like so many advocates of Mars exploration, I've always thought the sacrifice was worth it.īut – to test this belief – I wanted to look at the case against Mars three reasons humans should leave the red planet alone. We have known for some time that the journey to Mars for humans would be hard. Sending humans to Mars was ranked eighth (ahead only of returning to the Moon) with only 18% of those surveyed believing it should be a high priority. But while SpaceX and partners ask whether we could live there, others still ask whether we should.Ī Pew Research Centre survey carried out in June asked US adults to rank the relative importance of nine of Nasa’s current primary missions. This workshop signals the growing momentum and reality behind plans to actually send humans to Mars. Organised by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and attended by members of Nasa’s Mars exploration programme, the goal of this inaugural “Mars workshop” was to begin formulating concrete plans for landing, building and sustaining a human colony on Mars within the next 40 to 100 years.

Earlier this month, a group of 60 prominent scientists and engineers met behind closed doors at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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