Astronaut and author Buzz Aldrin had hardly settled back on Earth in 1969 when he was advocating expanding the space program to put humans on Mars. In the years since, more voices have joined the chorus.
Despite a generation of setbacks, Aldrin has stuck to his guns. His 2013 book Mission to Mars outlines his vision, and this year he published Welcome to Mars, a children’s book that sells his plan to the generation who will engineer and deploy the necessary technologies.
Aldrin has a lot of supporters, and not all of them are kids. A new generation of billionaires are not shy about parlaying their incredible wealth into passion projects. Elon Musk and Richard Branson have become synonymous with such ambitions, but a Dutch entrepreneur seems to have the most advanced plan.
Bas Lansdorp is the CEO of Mars One, a company that intends to fly colonists to Mars by 2025 and to pay for the adventure by chronicling their efforts on a reality TV show.
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