Hey, want to go to Mars? Well, according to Elon Musk, commercial flights from Earth to Mars may be available within as little as 30-years for the relatively reasonable cost of $500,000. Who’s Elon Musk you say? He’s the eccentric billionaire who created PayPal then sunk all his money into SpaceX, a company devoted to creating new reusable spacecraft and exploring our solar system. Sounds wacky, but this guy’s no kook — NASA has contracted Musk and SpaceX to supply the spacecraft that will transport goods and astronauts to the International Space Station once the Space Shuttle is retired.
The key to keeping costs down, according to Musk, is that the spacecraft that will go from Earth to Mars will all be reusable. Basically, you’ll just be paying for the rocket fuel to get you there and back — well, that and flight attendants and enough little bags of peanuts, cheese sandwiches and half-cans of Sierra Mist to keep you going for the 200-day flight.
To put this in perspective, if Musk isn’t juts crazy, one day you could visit the actual Mars for the same amount as Disney spent on 20-seconds of John Carter.
via io9
Mars via Shutterstock