I’m a NO. He’s such a devoted family man to take that 6 year round trip.

Given the delta v requirements to come back the only reasonable option is using Mars as an expensive graveyard. To do that you don’t even need to brake on arrival, which saves even more fuel.

The man is currently 52. It'll be at least a decade (probably 2) before any human sets foot on Mars let alone "regular" people. It'll be an extraordinarily uncomfortable journey, for which you'll need to be in absolute peak physical condition. Elon is a billionaire. He doesn't want to spend his golden years confined to a couple dozen cubic square feet eating protein packets on an exercise bike and peeing into a hose. He hasn't even been to low Earth orbit yet! Trust me, he doesn't want to go.

I believe we can move this market.

He's going to Mars if he doesn't die young or go broke first. Everything else is a stepping stone to that goal, except maybe Twitter.

This is a NO and it's not close. Mars is a marketing gimmick that allows Musk to get affirmation and attention for something that's not happening within his lifetime. Musk can put a car in orbit, and that's flashy, and the idea of Mars is flashy, but the cost in achieving them is magnitudes apart. I would buy NO stocks all day even if Musk wasn't diluting his time with Twitter and losing his fortune.

@MattP I think so; being within one foot of the surface of Earth probably counts as being on Earth. I'd be willing to hear arguments to the contrary.

@Duncan Well I think if he lands successfully that should certainly count, even before he actually touches the surface.

If he sets up a floating habitat in the atmosphere and goes directly there from the spaceship, that clearly should also count.

If the landing capsule successfully deploys its parachute and then he has a heart attack while it's still a few miles off the ground, does that count? Borderline, but I think I'd say no.

You could say that "on Mars" means that he's within the atmosphere and close to at rest relative to the surface of Mars. But you couldn't define a single cutoff speed, since the decent rate of the capsule in scenario #3 could be slower than the sideways speed of the floating habitat in scenario #2.

So maybe add on something like "his current position could be maintained for several days"? In which case I don't think death on impact should count.

@IsaacKing But surely death five minutes after impact should count? The 'several days' criteria seems awfully strong.

@Duncan five minutes should count, as five minutes is "any time". One millisecond of his body being in contact with mars before flattening into a thin paste, permanently contaminating mars with his freak microbiome, i think, should not count

@IsaacKing Landing on mars will be sufficient to resolve this market.

@TedSuzman Oh ye of little faith.