In one corner is Amazon chief executive and the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos. In the other, is South African entrepreneur Elon Musk. Their respective companies, Blue Origin and SpaceX, are competing to become the dominant force in commercial space travel.
Musk has a grimmer view of the future, perhaps because he grew up in Pretoria. He sees the Earth as irrevocably doomed, whether from global warming, rogue artificial intelligence or just old-school nuclear war. This necessitates establishing a colony on Mars, which can preserve human civilisation and eventually return to restore order to the post-apocalyptic Earth.
Constantly hearing about his own genius has blown Musk’s narcissism to cosmic proportions. Musk slanders less powerful people on Twitter and releases woefully unfunny gimmick rap songs just to keep in the public spotlight. Reading about him, you get a sense of a very talented, but unstable and profoundly miserable nerd-king, desperate for the world’s constant, fawning acknowledgement.
As our self-appointed saviours, you would think that Musk and Bezos would want to use their skills and resources to address this unprecedented existential threat to human existence. But neither has any particular urgency about addressing climate breakdown. Musk had made progress in renewable energy with Tesla, but this is still very much aimed at an elite market.
Space exploration is a worthwhile endeavour. It has taught us not just about the universe we live in, but has also drastically increased understanding of how our own planet works. Space should fill us with awe at the beautiful and terrifying weirdness of the cosmos we are part of. And, as the amazing photograph of the black hole showed earlier this year, the harshness of space is a stark reminder of how rare and fragile life on our own planet is.
Hater
Well I think Elon Musk just wants to go home.
He has renounced his South African citizenship
Think there’s space for many players here.
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