Elon Musk admits ‘bunch of people will probably die’ in first Mars missions
- SpaceX boss hopes to send people to Mars by 2026
- ‘It’s dangerous. It’s uncomfortable. It’s a long journey’
Tech billionaire Elon Musk expects some fatal accidents when his company starts sending people to Mars to explore and colonise the red planet.
“Honestly, a bunch of people will probably die in the beginning,” the SpaceX boss said in a recent interview with XPrize founder Peter Diamandis. “It’s tough sledding over there.”
He said rather than “an escape hatch for rich people”, Mars exploration will be treacherous.
The pitch to get people to go reads more like the ad that Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton used to recruit people for his perilous explorations of Antarctica, he said.
“It’s dangerous. It’s uncomfortable. It’s a long journey. You might not, you know, come back alive. But it’s a glorious adventure, and it’ll be an amazing experience,” he said in a recent interview streamed on YouTube.
“And your name will go in history,” Diamandis said.
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“Yes, but you might die,” Musk responded. “And it’s going to be uncomfortable, and you probably won’t have good food and all these things, you know. So it’s an arduous and dangerous journey where you may not come back alive, but it’s a glorious adventure. Sounds appealing. Mars is the place. That’s the ad. That’s the ad for Mars.”