Elon Musk’s humanity dream shattered as expert says we can’t live on Mars

“But Elon Musk’s back-up plan is to go to Mars and that’s a terrible idea…it is deeply unrealistic. The least habitable parts of this planet – on top of the Himalayas, the bottom of the oceans, the desert – are also vastly more habitable than Mars.

“It is kind of unimaginable that things would get so bad here that Mars would seem like a good idea. If Musk wants to go there that is fine, but it is not a good backup plan for humanity. Taking care of this planet is a much better idea.” 

Dr Cave noted that he was echoing the argument made by Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, who was also present at Sky News’ Big Ideas Live event over the weekend. 

During a panel discussion, dubbed Exploring Space: Why are we still racing to Space?, Lord Martin said: “Elon Musk says he wants to die on Mars, not on impact.”

He added: “The practical need for sending humans into space is more or less eliminated because robots can do the exploring with enough AI and they can fabricate big structures in space. My line is that space travel is an adventure and should be left to the private sector. I don’t think, if I was an American, I would want any public money to go towards NASA’s human spaceflight programme. That’s because it’s of no practical value now and also, if NASA does something it’s very expensive because they’ve got to be very risk adverse.”

Dr Cave’s book Should We Want To Live Forever, is set to be published by Routledge for release in 2023.

Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1699971/elon-musk-mars-spacex-big-ideas-live-world-population