Notice that once they reach the summit, they don't stay very long. They don't plan on building a home there and plant potatoes.
Musk is not just talking about exploring mars in this paper. He's not talking about a Everest-like challenge. He's talking about colonization, which in the eyes of many, is extremely premature at best, completely delusional at worst.
At the risk of using stale analogies: In the eyes of many, crossing the Atlantic was premature at best. In the eyes of many, summiting Everest is a waste of tens of thousands of dollars. In the eyes of many, free climbing is border-line delusional.
And that’s the point. This diversity of prioritization is what makes our species so great. Let the dreamers dream. I can see how you might want to make an argument that we shouldn’t publicly fund every naïve dreamer, but it seems difficult to argue that both NASA and Musk are idiots with how much they’ve already accomplished.
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Look, I understand people can have dreams that I neither understand nor approve. As you correctly pointed out, as long as they don't divert tax payer money to fund them, I'm more or less fine with it.
Yet, when I see someone doing something that I consider silly, or even suicidal (for mars the term is almost appropriate), I feel compelled to at least say it loud. Like if I saw Franz Reichelt just before he jumped from the Eiffel tower[1]. I would say "don't do that, you'll kill yourself" and nobody should blame me for saying that. Well, in the case of the colonization of mars, to me that sounds like a terribly wasteful and dangerous idea, and I feel compelled to say it whenever the subject comes up.
If it was allowed, someone would have tried.
Australia for instance, is mostly empty for this very reason[1]. Why would mars be easier to colonize than Australia?
1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3320021/Maps-just-Au...
Not quite. The next step is colonizing Earth. I agree we can do it if we really want to, and Dubai is a valid example. We may colonize mars in the future, but to me it doesn't make sense to try to do it now.
Maybe they don't. I totally would.