Randian heroes in our midst.

What if I told you there was a man who helped pioneer e-commerce by starting Paypal? And that he is now using that fortune to build revolutionary new rocket ships because he personally wants to go to Mars?

As much as this sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel, Elon Musk is a very real man, with very real dreams to see humans living on Mars. When he realized NASA would not likely put men on Mars till will after his death, and that a colony was right out under NASA, Musk decided to take things into his own hands.

So far it's been a great success, his Falcon 9 rockets are now the standard by which commercial rockets are measured, development on his Falcon Heavy is well under way, and a Dragon spacecraft is currently docked to the ISS.

But Musk plans to go to Mars, and none of his existing rockets can carry enough payload there at an economical price.

That's why he is developing the MCT, a reusable rocket that would return to Earth for refueling and reassembly after each launch. The MCT is rumoured to stand for Mars Colony Transport, although no one is certain just yet, since Musk is playing his cards tight to his vest on this project.

Musk is the sort of man who does things for himself. He wants to travel to Mars and live there. Seeing that no one else was willing to build the ships he ands his fellow colonists will need, he decided to build them himself. For that, I say congratulations to Elon Musk, a man who will make his way to Mars because it's what he wants. The rest of us will benefit from his vision and his passion, as long as we stay out of his way.

Space commercialization is well under way.

This morning, a private company delivered supplies to a remote outpost, including fresh fruit, a rare luxury for this particular outpost.

That's because this outpost is the International Space Station, currently the only manned space station in orbit, and that private company was Space X. While this cannot be said to be a fully private venture since the contract was paid with taxpayer dollars, it does show that commercial space flight has reached new heights.

And many of Space X's new contacts will be fully private. They plan to deliver the Bigelow Commercial Space Station to orbit in 2014, and to provide the majority of transport to the station, all with their existing Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. An unmanned Dragon, atop a Falcon 9 is what Space X used to deliver fresh fruit to the ISS crew.

Bigelow plans for access to it's commercial station for $26.5 million aboard a Dragon, and rental rates as low as $25 million for two months. At only $51.5 million for a two month stay in space, the Bigelow Space Station may well trigger a space population boom, indeed, Bigelow is prepared to build about ten of them, and there's no reason they can't be placed outside of Earth Orbit, affordable space stations over the Moon? Over Mars maybe? The possibilities really are endless.

Augmented reality? Google has you covered.

(Full disclosure, I'm a Google fanboy, I use a Nexus 7 as my personal computer.) Google is just about to start what is effectively a 8000 unit public beta of their new technology, Google Glass, which will provide augmented reality, voice controlled point of view camera, point of view video chat, and GPS directions and route data  right in your line of vision! Is that a left or a right? Pretty hard too get confused when you are directly comparing your maps with the world in front of you.

Some people are criticizing Glass on the basis that all of its functions are already possible on top line smart phones. While this is true, these people are missing the point. Glass is about putting augmented reality within reach, if all it did was provide Google Now cards in my field of vision I'd be thrilled.

Glass is set to do a lot more then that though. The functions shown in the "How It Feels" product demonstration will open whole new worlds for microbloggers, recreational athletes, and for anyone who might find both their hands busy, but still need communications or information.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm eager to try Glass, and that I'll be purchasing the first full release model. At which point you can look forward to first person videos of gardening and hunting. Oh, I'm sure you're just ecstatic.

Next stop, Mars.

As of yesterday, the private sector now has two significant Martian ventures planned for the next decade. While the incredibly ambitious Mars One project is planning to send one way trips to Mars to establish a human colony on the Red Planet by 2023, Inspiration Mars is planning a arguably less ambitious return trip, but on a much shorter time schedule, they hope to take two humans on a flyby of Mars by 2018. The two projects are very different, yet remarkably similar.

Inspiration Mars is a non-profit organization planning just one mission. A flyby of Mars in 2018, by two human astronauts. With only five years to make it happen, the timescale alone is ambitious. Inspiration Mars is being run by a citizen of the United States, for the United States. It is largely not an international project and it will work closely with NASA, they have not ruled out government funding for their mission, but are planning to rely primarily on donations.

As a libertarian, I'm not thrilled that the government will be involved in Inspiration Mars as it does subject them to some political pressure, nor am I pleased that it will be a rather nationalistic effort, but I am happy that the initiative is led by the private sector and will be largely funded from there.

And really, it's a bright step in the right direction, the knowledge gained will be invaluable to the team at Mars One, who will have four years to evaluate the lessons learned from Inspiration Mars before launching their first manned mission.

The travelers on Inspiration Mars will live in an inflatable habitat module for most of the trip, the sort being developed and constructed by Bigelow Aerospace.

Mars One, in contrast, will be completely private sector. The Mars One Foundation is a not for profit entity that will own the spacecraft, Earth based training outposts, and the Martian settlement itself. The colonists Mars One recruits will be employees of the Mars One Foundation. They plan to acquire funding through donations, but also through a for profit company, the Interplanetary Media Group. The Mars One Foundation owns the majority of shares in the Interplanetary Media Group, which will play a key role in the project's funding structure. Importantly, Mars One will not receive any government funding and is a fully international effort. This is to minimize the potential effects of politics on the mission, and allow it to remain focused on human achievement.

Mars One is probably the most ambitious human endeavour ever attempted, it's a real effort to take humanity from a single planet species, to one that thrives and flourishes on multiple worlds. It's the stuff of science fiction, but it's real, and it's happening.

Some controversy has been generated over the fact that there is no plan to bring the Mars One astronauts home. They will reach Mars, and live there for the remainder of their natural lives. This seems problematic at first, but remember, this isn't a one way trip just for four individuals, the plan is to continue to land new colonists every two years, with the potential to ramp up emmigration to Mars if the demand is high. These people won't be left stranded on a foreign world, they'll be the pioneers on the frontiers of space. The first colonists to the Americas never expected to return home, though they did face a more hospitable landscape in their new environment.

Both of these ventures are great steps forward for mankind. If they come to fruition, they will mark the beginning of our history as a multi planetary species. The first that we know of. Within our lifetimes, it now looks increasingly likely that we will get to bear witness to a reality where "Martians" are real, and very, very, human.