Elon Musk, a billionaire Bond villain who wants to nuke Mars, revealed in a recent interview that he’s worried a third World War might mess up his plans to colonize Mars.
In a profile with GQ, Musk talked details on a bunch of his pet projects: Hyperloop, Tesla, space suits, and of course, going to Mars. He sees it as a moral responsibilty of mankind to establish an outpost on another planet — kinda like backing up your computer, only 54.6 million kilometres away. The technical details don’t seem to bother him too much — he’s more concerned about what will happen here on Earth to spoil his plans:
I mean, I don’t think we can discount the possibility of a third World War. You know, in 1912 they were proclaiming a new age of peace and prosperity, saying that it was a golden age, war was over. And then you had World War I followed by World War II followed by the Cold War. So I think we need to acknowledge that there’s certainly a possibility of a third World War, and if that does occur it could be far worse than anything that’s happened before.
The full interview is well worth reading: as ever, Musk comes across as a technologist hellbent on improving the Earth, with only the slightest hint of a megalomaniac supervillain.
[GQ]