In today’s Money Morning…we’re going!…what will we eat?…Elon calls this new product ‘Optimus Sub-Prime’…and much more…
The year is 2072…
It’s 50 years since you read that Money Morning article one balmy summer day. Of course, you still remember the article word for word.
Not because you’re especially gifted…
But because your Tony Stark-designed Neurolink (any similarities to existing company names is purely intentional) memory chip implant remembers everything that you see or read. Of course, it’s not so good with recalling emotions, but maybe it’s best to let them fade with time anyway.
The article was simple enough. A warning, or a call to arms…however you want to phrase it. The title struck you immediately.
‘Mars versus Earth: Which Side Are You on?’
It seemed hyperbolic at the time. Not just an Earth war, but a solar system war. Mars versus Earth.
But here you sit today, enjoying your artificially-long life and enhanced mental faculties. The world has changed dramatically in 50 years!
Of course, your almond mocha decaf latte is still organic. You aren’t a savage, after all.
And while Mars and Earth aren’t presently at war, there is tension. Mars has become a thriving colony. And like any growing teenager, they’re pushing the boundaries and rebelling against authority.
Taxes! Who needs them? According to Mars, not them.
They’re sick of paying taxes back to the United Nations of Earth. And their latest protest was to dump a shipment of Earth-made Weet-Bix into space.
Now that article headline doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore. As the popular computer game series Fallout says, ‘War never changes.’
Back to that Money Morning article…
We’re going!
It wasn’t just a warning of some distant unavoidable war. It was a wake-up call. We’re going to Mars, people! Make no mistake.
We’re going to Mars.
The First Fleet colonised Australia in 1787. A British expedition with 11 ships and 1,300 or so British subjects. That was 235 years ago.
Technology has come a long way since then. Setting up a permanent settlement on Mars today seems far more feasible than it was for the British to colonise Australia all those years ago.
You see, back then, they had no idea what they were walking into. Their knowledge of the country, its weather, plants, animals, and people was basically…well, non-existent.
If I was on one of those early British boats to Australia with no knowledge of the place, I would have likely run screaming from a kangaroo and tried to pet a crocodile.
The wrong way around!
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Today, we have a very real understanding of what it will take to colonise another planet.
Elon Musk is planning to send a million people to Mars by 2050. As to when the first humans will land on their new home, he believes ‘best case is about five years, worst case ten years’.
So, the question is, if we’re going to land on Mars this decade, what will it take to get us there?
For one, it’ll take a huge reduction in the cost to get to Mars. So how do we build rockets cheaper, and increase their reusability?
Henry Ford revolutionised the car industry through the mass production methods used for the Ford Model T. Before that, cars were for the wealthy. Now most of us have at least one.
Will rockets go the same way? Are we just waiting for the key that unlocks cheaply-made, mass-produced rockets?
It’s worth thinking about where the solution to mass-produced or at least affordable rocket travel could come from. If you can spot it, and get in early, it would be like buying shares in Ford in 1910.
Mars is a hostile terrain, even more so than Australia was for the First Fleet. Growing food in that atmosphere is going to be tough.
What will we eat?
It could be that companies that specialise in controlled indoor farming will have a huge role to play. We have one such company on our Exponential Stock Investor recommended buy list right now that has big potential.
And this could be a huge year for them. You probably haven’t heard of them yet, but we’re betting that you’ll have by the end of this year.
There is energy, of course. Rocket fuel. How do we make it cheaper, not to mention more sustainable?
How about this. The average temperature on the surface of Mars is
-62°C. Who will be volunteering to go outside and do all the manual work in that kind of weather?
I wonder if it’s a coincidence that one of Tesla’s — another Elon Musk company — newest products is a humanoid robot designed to do the work that is boring or dangerous for people.
Elon calls this new product ‘Optimus Sub-Prime’.
I expect we could see big leaps forward in humanoid robotics over the coming years. This may be one of the keys to colonising Mars. Imagine if we could set up a fully-functioning, self-sustaining civilisation on Mars before we even sent the first human.
I know, it’s not on anyone’s radar right now, and it seems far-fetched.
But it would make the first solar war — Earth versus Mars — very interesting.
Until next week,
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Izaac Ronay,
Editor, Money Morning
PS: Izaac is also the editor at Exponential Stock Investor, a stock tipping newsletter that hunts for promising small-cap stocks. For information on how to subscribe and see what Izaac’s telling subscribers right now, please click here.
