Elon Musk’s first flirtation with space travel was a trip to Moscow soon after the Soviet Union’s collapse. He was interested in buying up old intercontinental missiles at $10 million apiece, and sending them to Mars with payloads of seeds and greenhouses to pave the way for humans.
That didn’t happen, but he is still determined to go. Mr Musk’s dream of turning us into a multi-planetary species by colonising Mars is the grand plan behind the launch of his first Falcon Heavy rocket.
The prototype may have been loaded with a car and a dummy, but he has pencilled in a more serious Mars mission for another rocket of the same design for 2020. That would carry a driverless rover and arrive in 2022.