“Making life multi-planetary”

Having said apocalypse, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel and thinking about the Sillicon Valley tech elite my mind jumps to Elon Musk and outer space. At the dawn of 2019 three of multibillionaires have their eyes set on space fare and are building rockets that will take some of us into space. The visions that guide their space programs are as different as the businesses they are famous for. Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and Tesla wants to explore and save humanity by making life multiplanetary; Jeff Bezos, the guy behind amazon, wants to turn deep space into work space; Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin empire, wants to ‘democratize space’ as one might have guessed (Virgin Galactic 2019). Branson wants to make space accessible for ordinary humans and want to benefit from space in order to protect Earth ( Each individual looking for a new venue to deploy their Earthern visions.Talk about emptiness and isolation: At the dawn of 2019 three of multibillionaires have their eyes set on space fare and are building rockets that will take some of us into space. The visions that guide their space programs are as different as the businesses they are famous for. Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and Tesla wants to explore and save humanity by making life multiplanetary (Musk 2017). Jess Bezos, the guy behind amazon, wants to turn deep space into work space and “tap its unlimited resources and energy” (Blue Origin 2019). Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin empire, wants to ‘democratize space’ as one might have guessed (Virgin Galactic 2019). Branson wants to make space accessible for ordinary humans at a price of £200,000 and wants to benefit from space in order to protect Earth (Howell 2019). Here business and technology is at the heart of the visions to penetrate the ultimate frontier. For Elon Musk and SpaceX the endpoint is settlement on Mars. “Elon is absolutely fixated on going to Mars” Richard Branson says (CNBC 2017), and Elon can have it. SpaceX have found the means to get there; the Big Falcon Rocket (Musk 2017). This new rocket will not only be the largest space rocket ever built, it will not only carry that largest payload ever carried into orbit, it will also be the cheapest rocket on the market and that is Elon Musk’s advantage. He has found a way to reuse rockets thereby cutting the costs to a minimum (ibid.: 6). The ‘payload’ is a spaceship’s carrying capacity and is measured in kilos, or as here ton. For a trip to Mars the payload would include the equipment and material needed to build a first space station – most immediately a plant for the production of propellant. Because Mars’ atmosphere consists of app. 95% CO2 and the planet has plenty of water ice, a local propellant production of CH4 and O2 is possible (ibid.: 8). SpaceX’s plan is to begin the first cargo mission in 2022 and to land its first crew of astronauts in 2024. Why do I include the colonization of Mars? The mining of asteroids. The building of hotels in lower Earth Orbit?