Our Future in Space

Elon Musk has stated that he wants to make human beings a “multiplanetary species” by establishing a self-sustaining human colony on the planet Mars. While this is a sensible and laudable goal for the immediate future, in the long run there are much better places to establish human colonies in the Solar System. The best way to move humanity off Earth was outlined forty-nine years ago by visionary Gerard O’Neill in his book The High Frontier.

There are very significant challenges in constructing ...