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emitting green house gazes, kind of what we are doing on
Earth. It will warm the planet up, thicken the atmosphere.
The atmosphere on Mars is carbon dioxide, so as you grow
plants, we convert the carbon dioxide into oxygen.”^4
But why is Elon so fascinated by Mars? Except for
Jupiter’s moons and the Moon, Mars is the only realistic
object in space humans can land on. The other objects
realistically close enough have a too hostile environment
making it impossible for astronauts to land. As Jupiter’s
moons are further away than Mars, the choices today are
between the Moon and Mars.
Elon’s vision is that we should begin living on other
planets. From that perspective is Mars superior compared
with the Moon. “On the Moon, you are missing a bunch
of elements,” Elon said. “Mars has the minerals and a
tremendous amount of water in permafrost. If you could
raise the temperature on Mars about 30 or 40 degrees
Celsius, it would be under water. On the Moon, water is
almost completely absent. Also gravity on Mars is closer to
that on Earth.”^60
You can compare the difference between the Moon
and Mars with the difference between the North Pole and
America. The North Pole is closer to Europe than what
America is, so why did we colonize America and not the
North Pole? “Even though America was far away and it
was a dangerous journey across the Atlantic, it still made
much more sense to create a new Amsterdam in New York,”
Elon said.^446
The temperature on Mars varies - a common tempera-