Opinion | Giant leap for Musk
SpaceX’s prospective customers may not need to worry if Musk’s defenders are correct
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is a futurist. He envisions human colonies that can sustain themselves far away from planet Earth. Dreamy visions, however, do turn groggy now and then. On Sunday, Musk tweeted a poster saying “Occupy Mars", an admirably ambitious idea, except that the accompanying image was of the Moon. It was a blood moon, specifically, the kind that looks reddish enough to be mistaken. But still, holidayers ready to stump up good money for a Mars-bound seat on SpaceX’s spacecraft Starship must wonder if they’ll end up leaving footprints on the dull grey lunar surface instead.
SpaceX’s prospective customers may not need to worry if Musk’s defenders are correct. They suggest his tweet was a wisecrack aimed at US President Donald Trump, who had put out a tweet on America’s national space agency that seemed to consider the Moon a part of Mars. Going to the Moon had been done, said Trump, outlining the “bigger things" that had to be achieved; his list included “Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science". Well, with such peals of mirth guaranteed, it’s a space race that’s hard to peel one’s eyes away from.
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