You have probably heard that Elon Musk intends to land humans on Mars. You may also have heard he wants to retire there, saying “I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.”
After Musk’s controversial entry into politics, some joked, “The sooner he goes [to Mars] the better”. Others suggest it will never happen, while actor Mark Ruffalo claimed on Musk’s own X channel that promising a US flag on Mars is a way to gain government funding.
It’s always been about Mars for Musk
I was a fan of Musk’s achievements when he seemed to be accelerating the transition to net zero with Tesla electric vehicles, but then he pivoted to installing politicians who will kill net zero. I began investigating why.
Former Tesla Vice President George Blankenship told the BBC in 2022 that everything Musk does is to progress his Mars plan: rockets, electric vehicles, solar power, boring machines.
Blankenship said, “when you step back and you look at it, some way or another it all goes together.”
Musk aims to take one million people to Mars over the next 20-30 years to create an independent Martian civilisation able ‘to grow on its own, even if the supply ships stop coming’.
Is Mars free to claim for the first person to step on it?
Musk claims Mars as a free planet outside Earth jurisdiction (Starlink T&C’s number 11).
I asked the UK Government for its position, via my MP. The Minister of State for space policy, Sir Chris Bryant, replied, “The Outer Space Treaty states that national appropriation (i.e. claiming territory) of outer space and celestial bodies is not permitted”.
Regardless, boots on Mars may prove possession is everything.
In a presentation posted to X on 29 May, Musk announced he is building Gigabays in Texas and Florida to produce 2000 Starships per year.
Starship is to transport 100 people at a time to Mars.
Although Starship has exploded in recent tests, don’t write Musk off. His SpaceX company has now launched its smaller Falcon 9 rocket successfully 500 times, placing over 7,000 Starlink internet satellites into orbit (Musk claims Starlink now owns 80% of active satellites orbiting Earth).
However, rockets are relatively the easy part. There is no protection from solar radiation outside Earth’s magnetic field on the 6-month journey to, or on Mars. Mars has 38% of Earth’s gravity. Low gravity is physically debilitating, possibly deadly long term and we don’t know how pregnancies will develop. (The book, A City on Mars by Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith explores these issues.)
Making living on Mars viable will be a massive endeavour.
Last month Musk tweeted that at least 1% of Earth’s resources should be directed to making humanity multiplanetary.
How might this fit together with Musk entering into politics?
Musk spent $250 million to win the Presidential election for Trump, a climate change liar, pledging to ‘drill, baby, drill’.
Then Musk turned to the UK, attacking the recently elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his response to race riots and crime. Musk called for an early election, urging people to vote for Reform UK, a party that had won only 14% of the vote, but that had pledged to “scrap net zero and unlock Britain’s vast oil and gas reserves”.
Musk publicly congratulated Reform leader Nigel Farage in February for overtaking the Conservatives in polls, after earlier calling for his replacement.
Musk appeared virtually at an AfD rally in Germany, the week after Trump’s inauguration. Again, AfD opposes net zero.
These parties should be questioned on whether they support Musk’s Mars plan.
Call for UK parliamentary hearings and US Congress hearing
I have been calling for Hearings in Parliament and the US Congress, into Musk claiming Mars as a free planet, the practicalities of Mars colonisation, and the impact on Earth.
The House of Commons Select Committee on Science, Innovation and Technology responded in April that it ‘is not considering or investigating the issues you raise‘ (private correspondence).
I can speculate on how backing Trump and Reform might facilitate Musk’s Mars plan, but instead. I asked his AI bot Grok to do so. You can read the full response here.
- technology before environment,
- climate change denialism to redirect net-zero resources,
- climate breakdown to justify ‘humanity’s backup’.
Grok stresses this is speculation.
I have been following Musk’s actions since the inauguration, to see if these would indeed divert resources from net zero to his Mars mission, and accelerate climate breakdown to give added impetus to establishing a Martian civilisation for the survival of the human race.
As DOGE head Musk assigned or removed funding
On his first day as President, Trump scrapped funding and policies addressing climate change, while endorsing Musk going to Mars and giving him control of the Federal Budget as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk used DOGE to weaken agencies regulating his businesses, and to pursue his Mars plan. He had feared the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would not licence his next Starship test. The FAA has had to divert hundreds of flights to avoid debris from Starship ‘unscheduled disassemblies’ (explosions). With DOGE controlling its funding, the FAA has cleared 25 Starship test launches per year and expanded the hazard zone.
DOGE also defunded the National Weather Service. Meteorologists say they now lack the data to accurately forecast the paths of hurricanes.
Climate breakdown will become more devastating. A nascent base on Mars may then seem essential and worthy of funding, as Grok speculated.
It seems Musk decided to accelerate his Mars plan in 2022, when he commissioned a sculpture called A Fork in the Road, saying, “Had to make sure that civilization took the path most likely to pass the Fermi Great Filters.”
The Fermi Great Filters is the hypothesis that extraterrestrials haven’t visited Earth, despite having billions of years to evolve and spread throughout the galaxy, because they became extinct before they could leave their home planets.
The real fork in the road
Musk suggests Earth civilization will similarly collapse, but he has a window of opportunity to make humanity multiplanetary: “Civilisation needs to retain its current technology level until Mars is self-sufficient, which could be achieved within ~20 years.”
This needs open discussion, because we will only be multiplanetary if we survive resource depletion and climate breakdown on Earth.
This is the real Fork in the Road:
→ Install governments that scrap net zero so Musk gets his Mars base before he dies.
→ Complete the transition to sustainability and net zero, begin a golden age for humanity on Earth – and then head to the stars.
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