With all the bad news, the political circus, and the dregs of Facebook, I almost missed this: Tuesday, SpaceX announced its plan to put humans on Mars in the next 15 years. And not just humans to visit and come back–humans to build a settlement and ultimately become self-sustaining.
Tim Urban at Wait But Why, my favorite explainer of hard things (where did ISIS come from? should I get married?) has a whole post up that explains the rockets and plan, and includes background info from his interview with Elon Musk. Go read it and feel better about humanity.
(Even better? The first transport to Mars might be named after Zaphod Beeblebrox’s ship inĀ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)