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Elon Musk just wants to go to space He longs to escape Earth's surly clutch

Even Baby Elon yearned to be a god. Paul Harris/Getty Images

Even Baby Elon yearned to be a god. Paul Harris/Getty Images


November 20, 2024   6 mins

In 414 BC, Aristophanes’ The Birds was first performed in Athens. In this comedy, two disgruntled middle-aged men, fed up with life on Earth, convince a giant bird to create a great city in the sky. Free from the cruel tyranny of the Olympian gods, mankind could achieve true fulfilment in this avian paradise. Out of this came the expression “cloudcuckoo land”, used to describe an idea completely divorced from reality. It reminds me of two other disgruntled middle-aged men — Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk — and their fantasies of celestial utopia.

I’m a space sceptic — rockets don’t move me. Back in 2006, I explored the seedier side of America’s lunar mission in my book, Dark Side of the Moon. It sparked outrage among those space enthusiasts who still cling desperately to Nasa’s glorious myths. And so I concluded that the world is roughly divided into two groups: there are those who care passionately about space and those who don’t give a fig. Men are prominent in the first group, women in the second. Go figure.

Being a space sceptic is a niche profession. This means that my phone rings whenever something important happens in space. Thanks to Musk, it’s been ringing a lot lately. And with the sixth launch of his Starship rocket yesterday, it’ll continue to do so. I care about space — in the sense that I believe that the dangerous fantasies of space moguls need to be exposed. And I still adore the old astronauts like John Glenn, Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong, all enormously brave men. But I recognise that they were mere pawns in a pointless political battle.

The recent exploits of Musk and Bezos fit into a longer story about celestial utopia. In 1869, Edward Hale published The Brick Moon, a short novel about a massive brick spaceship that is conceived as a navigational aid for those on earth. But a harmonious community, distinct from anything earthbound, quickly evolves within. Gravity was a cruel tyrant that prevented man from achieving true spiritual enlightenment.

President Ulysses Grant called the Brick Moon “the biggest thing since Creation, save for the invention of Bourbon whiskey and the Havana Cigar”. He was probably joking. Exactly 100 years later, President Richard Nixon described the Apollo 11 mission as “the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation”. He wasn’t joking. Mature, otherwise intelligent men genuinely believed that Armstrong’s small step was a “giant leap for mankind”. Armstrong himself expressed surprise that the lunar landing didn’t immediately bring the Vietnam War to an end.

According to this gospel of space, if man escaped Earth’s surly clutch, his soul would likewise soar. Earth was, some said, a “lousy planet”, a drag on human fulfilment. The idea was eventually taken up by physicist Gerard O’Neill who in 1981 predicted that a giant community orbiting in space would usher in an age of “perpetual plenty”, eradicating war, famine and poverty. Nasa paid him a large amount of money just to dream of utopia.

Space cowboys: Donald Trump and Elon Musk. (Credit: Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

This brings us back to Bezos and Musk. Wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “Occupy Mars”, Musk is a man who has everything but now wants a planet. It’s not yet clear what deal he has made with Donald Trump in exchange for support during the election — yet my guess is that it involves rockets.

“Musk is a man who has everything but now wants a planet.”

Musk first set out his vision in an article in New Space in 2017. Rather than a serious discussion of interplanetary migration as Musk intended, it reads like a comic book. If you’re seeking profundity, look away now. “It would be quite fun to be on Mars,” he writes, “because you would have gravity that is about 37% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around.” He admits that Mars “is a little cold”, (it has a median temperature of -65°C), “but we can warm it up”. And don’t worry about those windstorms that can last for months and which have the abrasive effect of shaving with a power sander. He’s going to fix all that. Musk aspires to be both a 19th-century imperialist and a god. “On the fifth day, Elon created an atmosphere. And it was good.”

Bezos thinks Musk is crazy — for the Amazon founder, turning Mars into a liveable planet is pie in the sky. He prefers instead an expanded version of O’Neill’s vision, with thousands of people living in an “Orbital Reef”. This would eventually expand into a vast conglomeration of connected tubes where trillions of people would live, creating the statistical probability of “1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins”. When it comes to dreaming, these guys don’t mess around.

All this might seem exciting to space nuts, but life would have all the romance of a transcontinental flight, except with no destination and no ETA. Reality would be much more mundane than the paradise promised by Musk and Bezos. Residents would breathe recycled air, drink recycled urine and live in perpetual fear of a catastrophic decompression caused by a collision with space debris. Featureless aluminium walls would drip with condensation and the air would smell of Dettol.

Bezos has gone a bit quiet of late, or rather Musk’s exploits with SpaceX have hogged the limelight. And with the latter’s proximity to Trump, we should probably concentrate on what he has in mind. He’s promised to resettle a million people on Mars by 2050, with the first settlers arriving by 2030. Since Mars and Earth are in close synchronisation only once every 26 months, that means that there are only 10 windows of opportunity between 2030 and 2050. He claims that his Starship reusable rocket will be able to transport 100 people or 100 tons of cargo at a time. That suggests 10,000 flights in 10 months, just for the human passengers. Added to that would be an equal number of cargo flights necessary to construct a city on Mars. So, we’re talking roughly 20,000 flights over about 300 days.

In addition to miners and rocket scientists there would be doctors, lawyers, accountants, sewage workers and pizza chefs. There would also be criminals, since that’s statistically inevitable. Musk figures that a ticket to Mars would initially cost around $500,000, decreasing to $100,000 over time. This could be paid for with a loan underwritten by SpaceX and paid back by working on the Red Planet. In other words, Musk wants something similar to the 19th-century American company town. His version of utopia consists of a million people in a state of perpetual indentured servitude, paying him for the houses they live in, the air they breathe and the water they drink. I’m reminded of the song “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford:

You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.

One wonders what type of person would want to sacrifice Earth’s rich bounty for a life on desolate Mars. The idea would probably attract people either hopelessly deluded or bitterly unhappy. Neither seems like the raw material of a stable community.

At first, these Martian residents would only be able to venture outside their enclosed shelters in spacesuits. Musk plans to fix that, however, by “terraforming” Mars, that is, turning it into an Earth-like environment. By using nuclear explosions, he’ll release the carbon dioxide frozen in the polar regions and, hey presto, there’ll be a weather system, breathable air, oceans, lakes, flora and fauna. Technically, the task might be feasible, but solving climate change on Earth would be a doddle compared to terraforming Mars.

The big question, it seems, is: what’s the point? Why build a colony on Mars if Earth’s environmental problems could be fixed for a fraction of the cost? Musk claims that humans need to become interplanetary in order to survive as a species. “I think this is an incredibly important thing for the future of life itself… there’s always some chance that something could go wrong on Earth. Dinosaurs are not around anymore!” That’s certainly true, but I’m sure there are deeper, more personal motives. One senses that Musk shares that mistaken belief that gravity is a tyrant, that a different world will produce a different human.

That vision seemed preposterous, but rather harmless, when described by Hale. Expressed by Bezos and Musk it seems downright frightening. We know them; we’re familiar with their rapacious labour practices. Tesla and Amazon are not good blueprints for utopia. What these billionaires seem to have in mind is an idiosyncratic paradise free from the laws that constrain them on Earth. They want King Leopold’s Congo, but in space.

When I was a boy, astronauts were my heroes. Their exploits carried me through a difficult decade of riots and war. My dad contributed to the space adventure by making components for the Saturn rocket that took Armstrong to the moon. But then he died an early death, killed by the carcinogenic chemicals he’d once handled. After I became a historian I discovered just how cynical the space race was, how good people were exploited to win a Cold War pissing contest.

Space travel has always been an ego trip; but at least back then there were real heroes who made it fun. Nowadays billionaires, not nations, are at the helm. The once heavenly realm has become an arena of greed and power. The lustre is lost. Musk’s version of utopia is not just cloud cuckoo land. It’s also a nightmare.


Gerard DeGroot is emeritus professor of history at the University of St Andrews and the author of Dark Side of the Moon: the Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest.


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John Galt
John Galt
17 days ago

The space agenisnt about the inhabiting space. It isn’t about terraforming Mars. It is about exploring the unknown it is about ascending man kinds spirit to be more to escape the tawdry mundanity of waking up at 9 dinner at 7 and football on the weekends.

It’s a reminder of the man’s eternal soul that longs to return home among the more exalted spheres from whence we came and to become and be more.

One might as w ll be against great art or music, space is an end in itself.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
17 days ago
Reply to  John Galt

Plus, the technological spinoffs which make life easier on Earth, create employment and encourage growth, arise when people have big dreams. Even though we may fall short of those dreams, in reaching out for them we accomplish so much.

The minute we stop having dreams, including on an individual, personal level, is the minute we start to die.

Yes, we all die, but for instance: those magnificent cathedrals bestowed by the Middle Ages took decades, sometimes centuries to complete. The skills and enterprise required – whilst intended to glorify God – are a testament to man’s ingenuity and spirit. Those who dreamed of them knew they wouldn’t be around to see their dreams realised, but realised they were. Flying buttresses, anyone?

The author messes with that spirit at his, and our peril.

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

How long is it since we had dreamers like that?

stacy kaditus
stacy kaditus
17 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Speak to more women;

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago
Reply to  stacy kaditus

What do you mean?

John Ellis
John Ellis
17 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

I think she is referring to this bold (and unsubstantiated) claim by the author:
“there are those who care passionately about space and those who don’t give a fig. Men are prominent in the first group, women in the second. Go figure.”

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
11 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Musk is certainly one.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
17 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Gaudi beats Musk

Andrew Morgan
Andrew Morgan
17 days ago

What a silly, spiteful article.

J Bryant
J Bryant
17 days ago
Reply to  Andrew Morgan

I think the article is important because it forces us to ask what is the point of Musk and Bezos’s space ambitions? John Galt’s comment goes part way toward answering that question.

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago
Reply to  J Bryant

It’s an interesting question, but the article is pretty cheap.

D Walsh
D Walsh
17 days ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Musk and Bezos both have been willing to invest big in Space, they were both told it was a bad or even stupid idea. There is a old joke that goes, how do you become a millionaire in Aerospace, start off as a billionaire, Must started SpaceX with a rather small sum, compared to NASA

It has paid off big for Musk but as of yet its been a huge money pit for Bezos, both are doing it because they grew up dreaming of the Apollo Moon program and were disillusioned by the lack of progress from the mid 70s on. the Space Shuttle was a big set back

Musk won’t get a city on Mars, but a research base is clearly possible, and base on the Moon too, large space telescopes, faster probes to the outer planets, a lot of things become possible if you have a cheap launcher that can put 100 tons to LEO regularly

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago

A very confused, trite, and rather cynical view in a childish way, of our adventure in space from this writer.
One senses that Musk shares that mistaken belief that gravity is a tyrant, that a different world will produce a different human.
That vision seemed preposterous, but rather harmless, when described by Hale. Expressed by Bezos and Musk it seems downright frightening. 
I do get a bit tired of people writing about what they sense about someone then arguing with what they imagine that person thinks. I’m guessing we’ll see more of these cheap shots a Musk. Don’t stick your head up above the crowd is the message.

John Ellis
John Ellis
17 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

I think you’ve nailed it, Brett. Always easy to set up a straw man and then undermine it with personal opinions, without bothering with considering the other side of the argument.
Mr DeGroot strikes me as rather a sad individual, if he’s made a specialism of opposing the pioneering and visionary endeavour of others – without any outstanding achievements of his own that might give him some credibility.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
17 days ago
Reply to  John Ellis

Agreed. I think we’ll see much more of this Musk bashing now that he’s aligned with Trump. As a man, I don’t give a fig about space exploration, but I fully support anyone who wants spend their billions as they see fit. There have been many skeptics of technological advancement over the years who have had to swallow their pride, even posthumously, as the fantasies have become reality.

Martin M
Martin M
17 days ago

I have no issue with Bezos, but I definitely think Musk should mover to Mars. This will be for the betterment of humanity. I will come to the spaceport to wave him off.

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

One man with the stars the other flat footed on the ground.

Martin M
Martin M
17 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Let’s just say that being on a different planet to Elon appeals to me.

D Walsh
D Walsh
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Elon, if you’re reading this, could you send Martin on a one way trip to Venus or better yet Neptune, thanks

How do you manage it Martin, wrong about everything, its remarkable

Rob N
Rob N
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

It probably appeals to many people you and Musk being on different planets.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

He won’t do anyone that favor, he will send some poor souls to try to survive on an inhabitable world, he won’t risk his own life, he will stick around earth like a sore thumb wreaking havoc because he believes he’s all powerful. Trump enjoys his company, they are the perfect fit.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
17 days ago
Reply to  Dave Canuck

Hell start with the hairdressers.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Bezos is one dimensional compared to Elon. Elon is a genius maverick – one of a kind in a lifetime – a crazy mix of so much and the richest man on earth. Self made at that. Bezos is a very good businessman, granted.

Tony Price
Tony Price
17 days ago

How very dare you criticise Emperor Musk, leader of and investor (expecting galactic returns of course) in the world and universe – and as the new Rocket Man up there with the Korean satrap. Maybe the Orange Man in his pocket will build some nice golf courses there – red sand in the bunkers?

mike flynn
mike flynn
17 days ago
Reply to  Tony Price

OK. Red sand bunkers funny and thoughtful. The rest is misplaced angry sputum.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
17 days ago

Sensitive lot you touch their rockets! Serious business, rockets. No joking. Don’t even give the critic a fag paper of leeway. Cancel him. Christ! Who in their right mind would go live in a tin box for humanity? Silly question. No shortage of volunteers obviously.

John Ellis
John Ellis
17 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

With an article in UnHerd to vent his spleen, this author has been granted more than a fag paper, wouldn’t you think?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
17 days ago
Reply to  John Ellis

Well, I meant by the fag paper to point out the herdlike character of the commentary. Or are we to view unheard and it’s readers as a kind of ameoba like the Guardian, but unheard publishes opinions for it’s readers hate, so they’ll think they’re different.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
17 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You are missing the point.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
11 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Why are misspelling unheard? Its the possessive doesn’t have an apostrophe btw.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
17 days ago

A sinfully costly religion-surrogate.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
17 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think humans did for tens of thousands of years before *your* religion became a means of people/thought control? Put in context, religion, in any organised sense with a specific doctrine *which must be obeyed* is a mere interloper in human dreams.

Sean Lothmore
Sean Lothmore
17 days ago

The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is worth a read. Plenty of revolutions against the founders. Takes a long time to get to Blue Mars.

Alan Gore
Alan Gore
17 days ago

In the time of the lunar race, it was easy to be a space skeptic, because space exploration cost fortunes that only governments could afford. You could always use the priorities argument: for any dollar spent for space (there is no money being spent in space) there was a more immediate need in the ever-hungry social welfare system. After all, what did those perpetually vision-lacking governments get for their money but flags and footsteps?
But now that Elon Musk has made space development cheap enough for business to afford, the whole equation changes. The capitalist world has already discovered that it can’t survive without satellites. As the cost of extracting mined resources goes exponentially higher, such enterprises as robotic exploitation of asteroidal metals is starting to look a lot more promising.
Will there ever be human settlement beyond Earth? Viable habitation on the Moon or Mars is as unimaginable now as Falcon and Starship were fifty years ago, but mankind has a long history of settling permanently in places that are far lesss than ideal. If DeGroot were right, all humans would live in Hawaii and nowhere else.

James Kirk
James Kirk
17 days ago

Mars is already 95% CO2. Does he hope to extract Oxygen from extra CO2? Atmospheric pressure is a function of Mars gravity. He can’t add to it as if it were a balloon. The best source of O2 is plant life. Would need to start with mosses and lichens. Unless he has a fusion reactor for power enough to split H2O. Whichever, new technology would most likely turn up long before such slow crude means provided a breathable atmosphere.

mike flynn
mike flynn
17 days ago

Mankind needs those who dream big. Especially when they execute on their own dime.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
17 days ago
Reply to  mike flynn

I read today that Elon’s fortune has escalated to 319 billion.

Mark HumanMode
Mark HumanMode
17 days ago

Thank you Mr DeGroot, now I understand a little more why I’m in the space camp. It may have unusual individuals, and it will just carry the human condition to new places, but it is our era’s incarnation of the human spirit to find the boundary and go past it. In the distant future someone like you Mr DeGroot will sit in their home office on Proxima Centauri b and moan about the weirdos who want to go to Lalande 21185.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
17 days ago

I get it. Musk and Besos were born as nobodies — like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Jobs.
“Really, darling. Not our kind.”

Martin M
Martin M
17 days ago

Musk wasn’t just born “a nobody”. He was born a South African as well.

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

You’ve said that before. What’s the problem?

Martin M
Martin M
17 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

I can only assume you haven’t met many South Africans.

Brett H
Brett H
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

You assume far to much from what I’ve seen.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
17 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

I’m South African. What’s the problem?

Maverick Melonsmith
Maverick Melonsmith
3 days ago

Do you still live in South Africa? If so, no problem. It’s the ones that destroyed their country with apartheid, and then moved somewhere else (mostly Australia, as far as I can tell) that I have a problem with.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
17 days ago

I may be mistaken, but I somehow get the feeling that the author is a space sceptic.

M To the Tea
M To the Tea
17 days ago

sorry to inform but I heard China is building a base on the moon, hurry up Elon!

Carol Staines
Carol Staines
17 days ago

Any alien life form observing our development must be thinking, “Oh, no! They are escaping! Stop them before they infect us!”

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
11 days ago

Pity the author has never read the good sci fi from the 60s and 70 s. Plenty of viable ideas there. Even Kim Stanley Robinson thought things out in his Mars trilogy. Greg Bear in Moving Mars. More recently Neil Stephenson wrote Seven Eves to show the impossibility of settling the solar system further than the asteroids. But said asteroids still end up with some billions of inhabitants. While the author is complaining, , others are thinking and dreaming.

Last edited 11 days ago by Anna Bramwell