Elon Musk Made A Dark Confession About The Fate Of Travelers On His Mars Mission

For years, experts and science-fiction writers alike have dreamed up ways humans could populate the universe. And, for better or worse, it seems the stage is now set to make this leap a reality. Musk’s a keen believer in traveling outside Earth, of course, but he knows better than anyone the potential for disaster—or all-out tragedy.

Famously, Musk founded SpaceX, which has become the first private company to meet a number of space exploration targets over the last two decades. Yet all that pales in comparison to his ultimate goal: to launch a manned flight to Mars. Yes, we may not have long to wait before humans begin to settle on the Red Planet. But while there are plenty of volunteers clamoring to make the life-changing journey, some may soon learn to regret that decision.

The journey itself may have some brutal challenges, too, and that’s according to Musk himself. When speaking to fellow entrepreneur Peter Diamandis in April 2021, Musk painted a terrifying picture of the first trips to Mars. And if his bleak prediction is to be believed, the folks on these pioneering missions will need to be made of stern stuff.

Not that this has put Musk off trying, mind you. He’s long nurtured a passion for life on other planets. Back in 2001, the young, successful business magnate came up with the idea for a project named Mars Oasis – an initiative to grow plants in an alien atmosphere. But when he attempted to turn his dream into reality, he realized that the necessary technology was out of his price range.

Then Musk came up with an innovative solution: he would manufacture the rockets to reach Mars himself. So in 2002 he launched SpaceX – a start-up with the ultimate goal of reducing the cost of interplanetary travel. And under this banner, the company went on to achieve some incredible things.

Because SpaceX became the first private company to successfully propel a liquid rocket into Earth’s orbit in 2008. And two years later, the team added the launch, flight and recovery of Dragon, another first for an independent venture, to their roster. Then in 2012 the company achieved another milestone.

Yep, SpaceX successfully landed a craft at the International Space Station, or ISS, becoming the first ever private company to do so. Eight years later, it went one better, actually sending a team of astronauts to the facility. Plus they were the first Americans to land there for almost ten years, reported the Daily Mail website.

The same year that SpaceX sent astronauts to the ISS, Musk achieved another, more terrestrial, goal. In 2020 his company began operating Starlink, the biggest satellite constellation in the world. Currently in the beta tasting phase, this innovation eventually aims to deliver fast internet to businesses and households across the world.

Despite these successes, though, Musk never lost sight of his original goal: to explore the potential of life on Mars. And while experts at NASA hope to land humans on the Red Planet some time in 2033, the team at SpaceX plan to get there much sooner. So the company has developed Starship: a reusable launch vehicle designed to go on the ambitious mission.

And Musk hopes to send Starship on a test mission to Mars in 2024. If that is successful, he plans to launch the first crewed journey two years later, in 2026. But although the program has enjoyed some success, the head of SpaceX admits that a number of developments still need to take place before his dream can be realized.

Musk waxed lyrical about the benefits of his mission to Mars in an interview with Diamandis. He said, “Humanity is the agent of life and we have an obligation to ensure the creatures of Earth continue even if there is a calamity on Earth, whether it is man-made or a natural calamity… What comes first – a self-sustaining city on Mars or World War Three?”

The SpaceX CEO has been outspoken about the need for future colonies on Mars to be self-sufficient – and able to survive any disasters on Earth. In a 2016 question and answer session on the website Reddit, he admitted that he envisioned a Red Planet equipped with facilities ranging from “iron foundries to pizza joints.”

But that is far from the strangest comment that Musk has made about the future. And not all of his predictions feature the sort of peaceful utopia that dreams are made of. In 2016 he gave a talk at the Code Conference hosted by Vox Media.There he warned that humanity risked being reduced to little more than house pets for artificial intelligence.

“I don’t love the idea of being a house cat, but what’s the solution?,” Musk asked the audience. To save society from this undignified fate, he suggested, scientists needed to develop a type of artificial intelligence that would improve the human brain. Known as neural lace, the concept is actually already in development.

Although this seems drastic, Musk himself has suggested that we are all part-cyborg anyway. Making a comparison between smartphone technology and robot-like superpowers, he said at the Code Conference,“You can answer any question, you can video conference with anyone, anywhere. You can send messages to millions of people instantly. Just do incredible things.”

Perhaps the strangest of Musk’s ideas, though, is his belief that we are all living in a simulation, created by the artificial intelligence of another civilization. Speaking at the conference, he said, “There’s a billion to one chance that we’re living in base reality.” But for a man convinced that our very existence is questionable, he is certainly invested in pushing humans to the limits of their potential.

And Musk is so determined to send humans to the Red Planet that he’s suggested using thermonuclear weapons to heat it up. Thus would the groundwork be laid for colonization to take place? To drive home the point, the entrepreneur even tweeted the slogan, “Nuke Mars.”

Musk has even gone so far as to speculate what sort of leadership a Martian society might have. Speaking at the conference, he said, “I think most likely the form of government of Mars would be a direct democracy, not representative. So it would be people voting directly on issues.”

This comment, again, highlights how Musk sees his proposed Martian colony as a kind of futuristic utopia. But his vision certainly has a dark side, too, perhaps even a more realistic side. In April 2021 the SpaceX head spoke to Diamandis, who launched the XPRIZE Foundation, about Starship’s proposed missions – and just how dangerous they’re likely to be.

“Going to Mars reads like that advert for Shackleton going to the Antarctic,” Musk admitted. The early 1900s explorer Ernest Shackleton published a newspaper notice before one of his famous expeditions to the South Pole – it’s generally believed. In it, he sought men to join him on his mission – but he didn’t beat around the bush.

The advertisement reportedly promised “[a] hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.” But despite these bleak conditions, the story goes, thousands of men clamored to join Shackleton on his adventure.

Yet historians now doubt whether this advert ever existed, having been unable to find it in newspapers of the time. But regardless of proof, the anecdote has gone down in history as an example of courage – or perhaps foolhardiness – in the face of adversity.

It’s no wonder, then, that Musk has drawn a parallel between Shackleton’s perilous Antarctic expeditions and his own mission to Mars. Because anyone signing up for the latter will face even harsher conditions than the men who sailed off in search of the South Pole. And it’s a given that these challenges will be harder to overcome.

“You know it is dangerous, it’s uncomfortable and it’s a long journey,” Musk acknowledged in the interview with Diamandis. And like Shackleton’s men, many of the people who sign up for SpaceX’s Martian missions will likely not live to make the return trip. The entrepreneur added, “You might not come back alive.” Despite the dangers, though, he promises that it will be quite the journey.

“It is a glorious adventure and it will be an amazing experience,” Musk insisted. But he added, “Honestly a bunch of people will probably die in the beginning. It’s tough going over there.” Thus it should come as no surprise that travel to Mars is not without its challenges – but just how risky is it?

Some five years before his interview with Diamandis, when Musk began to announce his Martian plans, he also spoke out about the associated risks. During a 2016 presentation, he said, “I think the first journeys to Mars will be really very dangerous. The risk of fatality will be high. There’s just no way around it.”

The journey to the Red Planet on board Starship is likely to take as long as six months, according to current estimations. And in that time, there are a whole host of things that could go wrong. Although Musk himself has not gone into any detail about the specific risks, others have not held back.

According to the website of Mars One, the aborted Dutch project that once rivaled SpaceX, the dangers of a mission to the Red Planet are akin to those faced by extreme mountaineers. It reads, “Mars is an unforgiving environment where a small mistake or accident can result in large failure, injury and death.”

But while Musk acknowledges that the mission may well be fatal at first, he insists that any risk is worth it to kickstart our life on another planet. In his 2016 presentation he said, “This is less about who goes there first… the thing that really matters is making a self-sustaining civilization on Mars as fast as possible… This is really about minimizing existential risk and having a tremendous sense of adventure.”

“It would be an incredible adventure,” Musk added. “I think it would be the most inspiring thing that I can possibly imagine.” And while speaking to the Coding Conference that same year, the entrepreneur admitted that ending your life in space might not be such a bad way to go.

“I think if you’re going to choose a place to die, then Mars is probably not a bad choice,” Musk said. And there are plenty of people who seem to agree. Despite warnings about almost guaranteed fatalities, there are hundreds of thousands of people willing to be among the first to colonize the Red Planet.

“You still have thousands of volunteers, if not millions of volunteers, who would want to go,” Diamandis pointed out during his interview with Musk. And with rival companies such as Mars One out of the running, it seems likely that SpaceX will be the ones to send these willing pioneers on their way.

And things were apparently always supposed to play out this way. Because back in 1953 the German scientist Wernher Von Braun published The Mars Project, a document which lays out the specifications for a future mission to Mars. Almost 70 years later, it remains one of the most influential texts ever written on the subject.

Yet Von Braun’s book also speculated on the societal forms that such a mission might lead to. And in December 2020 one Twitter user pointed out something strange within the pages of The Mars Project. The text references someone named “Elon” who will one day play a crucial role in mankind’s colonization of Mars.

Musk himself questioned whether this claim was genuine to begin with – but other Twitter users came forward to confirm it. The word “Elon” really does appear in Von Braun’s highly-regarded work. But, it seems, it’s used to refer to a title as opposed to the first name of a person.

“‘Elon’ referred [to] by Von Braun in the book isn’t the name of the person but rather the name of the position, something like an elected meritocratic president,” Tweeted Pranay Pathole. According to the British newspaper Daily Express, the passage in question reads, “The Martian Government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled ‘Elon.’”

So was Musk always destined to lead mankind to the Red Planet? He once jokingly gave himself the title Emperor of Mars, for instance. And if so, will any human fatalities, no matter how predictable they might be, rest on his conscience as he inches ever closer to realizing his colonization dream?

Opinion over Musk’s death-defying mission to Mars has been split. And while some have praised him for being realistic about the challenges involved, others have questioned whether he himself would be prepared to take the risk. Critics, meanwhile, have asked if we should even be pursuing space travel at all.

As some people have rightly pointed out, humans do not exactly have a good track record when it comes to taking care of planets. So should we really be planning on colonizing another one, even as our own environment struggles? While Musk’s deadly mission might ultimately help mankind to survive, it may well be at the expense of Mars – and any other destinations in his sights.