Why Should We Go to Mars? | MARS

[Music] The reason humans should go to Mars is because we're human. I mean, we are an exploring species. It's what's made us the dominant species on this planet. If we only lived in one little plot of land on Earth and we never went anywhere, I would say, "Let's explore." I need a good reason to cross this ocean. Well, because we haven't done it before, how's that for a good reason? We might learn something tomorrow that we don't know today.

You know, there's an old, old saying: "Why are you climbing that mountain?" It's because it's there. Because I want to do that. It's what we do; we explore as human beings. And so, going to Mars is an obvious next step. It's the great Beyond in the most literal terms, right? It's the great be. We humans love a target; we love to have something to shoot for, to aim for, and to build a plan to make happen. Mars has that sexiness, that romance. I think it's galvanizing a lot of people right here, right now.

For me, it's just a curiosity as a human being. I'm curious, you know? You want to know what's beyond that horizon. Curiosity has actually fueled most of the great achievements that we've made in the world, especially through technology. If there's a place you've never been, there's a scientist who wants to know what's there—just the curiosity of inquiry. We can understand the evolution and formation of our own solar system. We can start to understand how planets form and how they evolve. And we can all start to understand, you know, the distribution of life in the universe.

We're looking for life. So when you ask people, "Why are we going to Mars?" number one reason is because we are looking for signs of life elsewhere in the solar system. Imagine if we can find that there are actually some cells or some signature of life on Mars. That would be game-changing in our thinking about our position in the universe.

One of the things that happens when you go into space—and all the astronauts have talked about this—is that it changes your perspective about the Earth. The human experience of actually being there will be revelatory in ways we can't even imagine at this moment. The true awe of, "Hey, who are we in this universe, and what can we learn about it, and what can we therefore learn about ourselves?" I think is a really great reason to explore.

One of the reasons that I really like is not seeing Mars as a challenge to overcome, but to see Mars as an opportunity to unite people together in a peaceful way. We can give not just ourselves, but our culture and our society and our species, a goal and can unite so many different types of people together. You're actually addressing fundamental issues on Earth by giving people something optimistic to pursue. And that's why I want to see us go to Mars, and I want to leave that as a legacy for my children and for the next generations of our species. [Music]