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Elon Musk Says There's a '70 Percent' Chance He'll Move to Mars

posted by Fnord666 on Monday November 26 2018, @10:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-forget-to-say-goodbye dept.

martyb writes:

Elon Musk Says There's a '70 Percent' Chance He'll Move to Mars:

Elon Musk has talked about personally heading to Mars before, but how likely is he to make the trip, really? Well, he just put a number on it. In an interview for the Axios on HBO documentary series, Musk said there was a "70 percent" chance he'll go to Mars. There have been a "recent number of breakthroughs" that have made it possible, he said. And as he hinted before, it'd likely be a one-way trip -- he expects to "move there."

The executive also rejected the idea that traveling to Mars could be an "escape hatch for the rich" in its current form. He noted that an ad for going to Mars would be "like Shackleton's ad for going to the Antarctic," which (though likely not real) made clear how dangerous and the South Pole journey was. Even if you make it to Mars, you'll spend all your time building the base and struggling to survive harsh conditions, Musk said. And while it might be possible to come back, it's far from guaranteed. As with climbing Everest, Musk believes it's all about the "challenge."

The interview is available on YouTube.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday November 28 2018, @05:28PM

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Wednesday November 28 2018, @05:28PM (#767369) Journal

    His value may be greatly overestimated. Musk has already set the company on the path to deploying a fully reusable rocket, made several major alterations to the rocket's design, and has laid out the plans for the company to become a satellite ISP. They just have to execute now.

    Once BFR (or "Starship Super Heavy") is working, I don't really care about the Mars-related stuff. Just its low Earth orbit capability and cost per launch alone will allow it to revolutionize access to space. We can start talking about putting up cheap and gigantic space stations, super large space telescopes including modular ones, etc. And we could send many heavy and cheap probes and rovers to Mars and the outer solar system.

    I think losing Gwynne Shotwell [bloomberg.com] might be a greater blow to SpaceX at this point.

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