[VeilEm]

> which is intended for their Mars project

Space X is a for profit company right? What's the profit incentive of going to Mars? A marketing ploy? Does SpaceX not have any investors besides Elon Musk to answer to about spending?

[btilly]

Elon has done back of the envelope calculations and believes that Mars colonization can be profitable at a cost of around a half-million per ticket, with a free return for anyone who decides they want out.

At that price point, moving to Mars is something you can fund by selling your house. If enough people want to do it, he could make a lot of money that way. In addition to going down in history.

If he is wrong, well, it is his money. And every step along the way to building that capacity can be justified by ventures that are making money now.

[toomuchtodo]

If you invest $5K USD each year in an equities-heavy index fund, with compound interest and average market returns, you'll have your Mars ticket in ~25 years. Additional funds invested each year speed that up.

[lutorm]

It's a privately held for-profit company. Who knows what the owners want...

[gozur88]

Actually, since Musk owns half of it we can get a pretty good idea.

[TeMPOraL]

SpaceX is structured as a for-profit company, but the entire reason it exists is the Mars project, and Elon's vision of making humans a multiplanetary species.