Exodus: Musk on Mars (and Life, the Universe and Everything. and “f*¢k Earth”)

Illustration by Michael Marsicano, from Aeon

Need some post-turkey dinnertime conversation starters? Wander on over to this 6900-word plus story, interview and chat with Elon Musk by Ross Anderson, (“…deputy editor at Aeon Magazine. He has written extensively about science and philosophy for several publications, including The Atlantic and The Economist.”) : Exodus.  Here are the top ten comments from Musk, guaranteed to stir up some chatter:

1. “Fuck Earth!’ Elon Musk said to me, laughing. ‘Who cares about Earth?’ ”  Need we add to that?  Well, let’s at least give it some context to be fair: “Musk was laughing because he was joking: he cares a great deal about Earth. But this is his manner. On television Musk can seem solemn, but in person he tells jokes. He giggles. He says things that surprise you. “
2. On Humanity: ‘It’s funny,’ he told me. ‘Not everyone loves humanity. Either explicitly or implicitly, some people seem to think that humans are a blight on the Earth’s surface. They say things like, “Nature is so wonderful; things are always better in the countryside where there are no people around.” 
3. On Intelligent Life in the Universe: “‘The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation,’ he told me. ‘Like when you’re playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can’t ever get there. If it’s not a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s some advanced alien civilisation that’s just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a petri dish.’ “
4. On our focus on space travel, in response to the comment:  ‘There is an argument you often hear in space circles, where people say the focus on human space travel in the near-term is entirely misplaced” – ’‘What focus? There isn’t one, you know.”
5. On the Cost of Curiosity: “The last RC car we sent to Mars cost more than $3 billion.”
6. On the Civil War: “…the final call went to the National Historic Landmark Association, because the last battle of the Civil War was fought a few miles away from our site, and visitors might be able to see the tip of our rocket from there. We were like, “Really? Have you seen what it’s like around there? Nobody visits that place.”
7. On a Trip to Mars: “… it’s not going to be a vacation jaunt. It’s going to be saving up all your money and selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies.”
8. On Star Travel: “‘Wow,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty hard to get to another star system. Alpha Centauri is four light years away, so if you go at 10 per cent of the speed of light, it’s going to take you 40 years, and that’s assuming you can instantly reach that speed, which isn’t going to be the case. You have to accelerate. You have to build up to 20 or 30 per cent and then slow down, assuming you want to stay at Alpha Centauri and not go zipping past.’”
9. On SpaceX’s future and his own mortality: “I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.”
10. Finally: On What We Need to Do to survive and flourish as a species- “we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation. That’s the next step.”

There’s so much more on that interview.  Be sure to read it all, here.