Elon Musk is no stranger to space exploration, saying that SpaceX rockets should be capable of shuttling humans in the next two or three years.
Musk was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday, Sept. 9 and he talked about Mars and space and everything in between with the TV show host. He has always been vocal about his support for bringing people to the Red Planet and space exploration in general so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he would be pushing SpaceX to be ready with carrying people in its rockets in the next few years. Not to mention that the company also has a deal with NASA it has to fulfill.
Mars is largely inhospitable right now, said Musk, but referred to it a "fixer-upper of a planet." People have to first live in domes but eventually the chance will come to transform Mars into something with more Earth-like conditions.
And in line with turning the planet into a place fit for humans to live in, it will have to be "warmed up." According to Musk, there are two ways to do this: the fast way, which involves dropping thermo nuclear weapons over the planet, and the slow way, which entails releasing greenhouse gases.
Given the way greenhouse gases emissions have warmed up the Earth, they will then be effective in warming up Mars, pointed out Musk.
"We've gotten a lot of experience doing that," he said.
As CEO as well for Tesla Motors, Musk's beef with greenhouse gases is understandable, calling burning fossil fuels the "dumbest experiment in human history" earlier in the year. Talking to Colbert, he reiterated the sentiment, saying that it is important that sustainable energy be fully harnessed within the century.
Aside from warming up Mars, Musk also has ideas on how to transform the planet into something more habitable, like sending microbes to the Red Planet via "biological teleportation." That's just a fancy term for a plan to print life on the Red Planet by sending genetic code from Earth and printing said code on a 3D bioprinter on Mars. Biological teleportation was discussed in a Musk biography authored by Ashlee Vance, which came out earlier in 2015.
Photo: Steve Jurvetson | Flickr
