Tired of the New Year’s Health Kick? Solution: Build a Vegetarian-Only Settlement on Mars!

Seven days into 2013 and chances are you fall into one of two camps: a) those who have already given up on their New Year’s Resolutions or b) those who wish everyone else would. So if you’re tired of hearing about how your entire friends-list is suddenly super-energetic and super-regular, listen up. These plans for a vegetarian–only colony on Mars could just be the answer to your prayers.

Newly enabled due to recent advancements in space travel, Paypal founder Elon Musk wants to build a colony of 80,000 vegetarians on Mars. Presumably because vegetables are a lot cheaper to transport than cows, though the answer may be a bit more political.

“Too few [people],” Musk says, “and the gene and culture pool dries up. Too many and you risk civil war.”

In other words, Musk envisions some sort of futuristic veggie-hippie utopia, run by fertilizer machines, oxygen and methane from Mars’ atmosphere and big transparent domes for growing Earth crops. But it’s not as crazy as it sounds – Musk, whose Falcon 9 rocket delivers rocket fuel to the International Space Station, wants to start with just ten people at first, you know, to help figure out the whole issue of radiation and get the civilization really going.

Luckily, he’s also planning on making the trip super-affordable at just $500,000 a trip. Aspiring pseudo-yogis, sign-up sheets are to the left.

H/T The Register, Picthx Policymic