Certain high-profile billionaires have made no secret of their intention to take a mission to Mars, but is this moonshot actually feasible?

“Ever” is a long time, of course, and what seems possible today probably pales in comparison to what we can accomplish 50 or 100 years from now; just 66 years separated the Wright Brothers’ first successful flight from the moon landing, after all. Even so, the logistical and financial hurdles that stand between us and a permanent colony on the red planet are almost unfathomable in their complexity — not that that’s going to stop us from trying.