Now That Everyone Hates Elon Musk, Can We Talk About How His Mars Colony is a Dumb Idea?
Yes, we can! (talk about how it is dumb)
Believe it or not, I’ve gone easy on Elon Musk. That’s because I think that some of his companies do things that benefit humanity. Not Twitter, obviously — Twitter is to the modern world what lead pipes were to ancient Rome — but rockets are cool and electric cars are important, so SpaceX and Tesla have societal value. And that’s why I’ve downplayed my opinion of Musk even as I’ve come to believe that he’s 10 percent Howard Hughes, 30 percent P.T. Barnum, and 60 percent Russ Hanneman from Silicon Valley.
Of course, these days, Musk’s reputation is roughly equal to that of Pontius Pilate, or gas station bathrooms. Though a series of decisions that make the Franklin Expedition look like a masterclass of strategic planning, Musk has alienated virtually everyone. The New Republic even named Musk their 2023 “Scoundrel of the Year”, which is a designation that I assume goes way back, since use of the world “scoundrel” has really dropped off in the post-Franco Prussian War Era. So, now that Musk is widely hated, I feel that the coast is clear for me to address a little-mentioned part of the Musk portfolio: His plan to build a one million person strong colony on Mars. I think that is a very dumb idea that won’t work.