Elon Musk REALLY wants to colonize Mars
Key things needed for his vision to succeed are reusable rockets, willing (and wealthy) volunteers, and a collaborating government to foot some of the bill.
[source]“Some money has to be spent on establishing a base on Mars. It’s about getting the basic fundamentals in place,” Musk said. “That was true of the English colonies [in the Americas]; it took a significant expense to get things started. But once there are regular Mars flights, you can get the cost down to half a million dollars for someone to move to Mars. Then I think there are enough people who would buy that to have it be a reasonable business case.”