Reddit reviews MARS

How We'll Live on Mars is a book released by Ted Talks. A 100 page, short read about Colonization efforts through NASA and Space X

The Case of Mars came out in 1996, and was later revised when the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars. This is much longer and more in detail about the entire process of trying to go to Mars, the ideas with the International Space Station, potential lunar base and the space shuttle. Very detailed. A bit superfluous in detail, honestly.

There is also a short series by National Geographic called Mars. Half of it is interviews with said authors above and other officials, such as Elon Musk, and then the other half is a hypothetical narrative of what the first four years on Mars will be like.

The Mars One Mission is a bust. It's a really interesting dream but there is no way it will happen. Opening up space exploration to the private sector has jump started a new space-era for us. It is tangible, everyone is on fire for the next step.

NASA is sending a fly by mission to Mars in 2023, a husband and wife, to loop around the planet. This will be the farthest any human has been in space.

In 2028 tentatively, more likely 2033, we will send our first team to the ground on Mars. There it is likely they will set up a colony.

Elon Musks' ambitious dreams are that by the end of the century we will have a city of 1,000,000 people on Mars. It can happen, it's just a matter of physics problem and the support of the Earth population.

Getting to another planet drops our extinction rate to almost zero. Once we can planetary engineer (terraform) another planet, we will be sure to survive any cataclysmic event on Earth.

Here is Elon Musk on TED Talk discussing Rockets and the Future with Mars at about 30 minutes in.