Tech pioneer is seeing red
Entrepreneur Elon Musk is spelling out one of his favorite way-out ideas. Within a decade, hundreds of human pioneers could begin colonizing Mars, the vanguard of up to a million within a century. They’ll get there on Musk-supplied rockets, live in domed shelters and take on new lives on a relatively Earth-friendly spot in our solar system. Think of Antarctica without all the snow and penguins.
It’s an intriguing idea. Space exploration has receded from the public’s imagination in recent years though NASA and other nations have shot off probes and ferried scientists to an orbiting space station. NASA has plans for an astronaut-equipped fly-by and eventual landing in future decades. Musk wants to change that with a big jump similar to the impacts that his trend-setting Tesla car and solar panels have had.
His thinking builds on the exploratory spirit embedded in all humans, leading him to compare his rocket company to the Union Pacific Railroad that opened up the American West. Intelligent life can’t stand still, he argues.
But he said a Mars colony is also an insurance policy against global disasters and natural threats from outer space such as asteroid strikes. Humans, he said, need to become a multiplanet species, resilient enough to go to distant spots and survive even if their home base doesn’t. The specter of global warming, nuclear weapons or incurable diseases has led other thinkers to say much the same. This guidance also needs practical support. Getting to Mars and staying there involves costly hurdles in rocket capabilities, fuel and self-sufficient living systems on the red planet. Exactly what people would do all day in a pressurized capsule or a Matt Damon-style space suit is to be determined. That’s not Musk’s job for now. He’s offering experience as head of SpaceX,rockets aloft which despitehas sent two numerousrecent explosions. He’s taking a government-run space program and injecting private sector advances. He’s throwing out sci-fi ideas and showing how they may work. It would be one giant leap for mankind, to borrow the words of moon-landing astronaut Neil Armstrong.