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According to billionaire Elon Musk, there are two options for humans. Option one: “We stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event.” Or option two: “We become a spacefaring civilization and a multi-planet species.”

On Sept. 27, Musk gave a press conference in Mexico where he outlined SpaceX's plan to get our species to Mars. The basic idea: Reusable launchers will put spaceships into orbit. The spaceships will take off every 26 months when planetary alignment brings Earth and Mars close together. The spaceships then return to Earth to pick up more passengers. If it all works, Musk thinks the cost of a ticket could be $200,000 instead of $10 billion.

This is a very ambitious plan. The probability of death is "quite high" on the first mission, Musk said. We made a game to illustrate the immense difficulty of spacefaring. Check it out here, and try not to die.