Elon Musk wants to settle on Mars. Is it profitable?

But the company did not specify how much the latter would cost.

It begs the question: Want to make money on Mars?

Planetary profit

It will take SpaceX many, many more years to develop all the technologies needed for a Mars settlement. The company is in the early stages of building its starship, a massive rocket and spacecraft system that Musk hopes will carry cargo and people across a vacuum of at least 30 million miles between Earth and Mars. Musk estimates that Starship development will cost up to $ 10 billion, and that SpaceX will try to launch “hundreds” of satellites into Starship before it can hand over human lives on August 31st.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Musk said. “You have a good chance of dying, it’s going to be hard … it’s going to be very glorious if it works.”

The idea of ​​the landscape arose from the scientists around it, the mayor said, but not from anyone who thought it was something that could or could be done by humans.

“It’s an intelligent exercise,” the mayor said. But there is no oxygen in the Martian atmosphere. There is an infinite amount of water, which means it will be very difficult to grow crops, which means there is very little to create a water cycle around Mars. It is not even clear if there is enough evidence to make the landscape possible on Mars.

I think “Total Recall” is the right idea, “he joked.” You have to use some alien technology. “

Musk also acknowledged that the terrain would be very fertile. But this notion is embedded in the SpaceX stories that the company sells T-shirts called “Nuke Mars” and “Occupy Mars”.

Kasturi can often be seen wearing one.

Values ​​and ratings

The mayor said there are no known resources on Mars that would be valuable enough to sell to mining and terrestrial businesses. “Part of the reason [scientists are] There is interest in Mars – it is made of the same materials as Earth, “he told CNN Business.

Money-making ambitions aside, the idea that Mars could one day become a metropolis and – possibly – a tourist destination is acknowledged by leading scientists such as Mayer, NASA’s leading Mars expert.

The mayor, 20 years ago, attended a presentation on Tuesday business and tourism. “I was very skeptical about this … and coming out, ‘Well, [there are] Some pretty reasonable ideas, ”he said, adding that I now accept the idea that businesses can make space travel more accessible.

The mayor added that, in his mind, it was not If The trip to Mars will one day be a lucrative endeavor, however When.

“Ideas could be another potential export for Martian settlers,” Jubrin, president of the Mars Association, wrote in his 1996 book, The Case for Mars.

As we look to the future of humanity, Juprin looks to its past.

“Just as the labor shortage in the United States in the colonial and 19th centuries created a flood of Yankee ingenious inventions, so too will the conditions of acute labor shortages … lead to Mars ingenuity.”

In a recent interview with CNN Business, Jubrin backed those ideas, arguing that American colonialism worked. An example of how Mars settlers would finance their travels, Juprin seeks to re-colonize North America, either by dissolving their territorial possessions or by “contracted slavery” to finance the expedition.

“If you say, OK, you want to go to Mars, you want to offer something,” Juprin said. “If you look at colonial America, a middle class person can go to America by dissolving their farm. But, income will give them a one way ticket. But if you work, all you can do is sell your labor for seven years.”

Jubrin, who has worked with conservative think tanks but says he is not politically affiliated, also acknowledged that colonialism could go hand in hand with exploitation: “If someone says, ‘But there will be no exploitation?’ Of course, people always do to each other. ”

To be clear: The story of American colonialism includes savage slavery and the brutality and annihilation of many Native peoples.

“There are no Native Martians,” Juprin said.

But Damien Williams, a PhD student and author of the Virginia Tech Study of Advanced Technologies, Ethics, and Communities, warns that exploring the stories and space we can tell about the United States may leave the main context.

Musk’s use of the word “colonialism” enriches himself with the long history of Americans and other Western nations by exploiting and enslaving others. When colonizing another planet, it is not just the microbial lifestyles that may exist on Mars. Williams said that without clearly defined goals and agreements, the SpaceX colony could create a “controversial conflict”.

“The values ​​we take for space exploration should be front and center,” he said.

SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment on this story.