Elon Musk wants a Mars base to protect humanity in the event of a third world war
The entrepreneur said he will launch a rocket to the Red Planet next year.
Elon Musk may have gained some reputation as a serial apocalypse speculator (after all, he has been vocal about the threats of artificial intelligence), but at a recent event, the billionaire entrepreneur took his views a little bit further.
Speaking at an SXSW conference, Musk shared his thoughts on why humans need to have already established colonies away from Earth.
He said: “There’s likely to be another dark ages… particularly if there’s a third world war.
“It’s important to get a self-sustaining base on Mars because it’s far enough away from Earth that [in the event of a war] it’s more likely to survive than a moon base.
His comments come just days after Donald Trump announced plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in an attempt to defuse rising nuclear tension.
SpaceX, meanwhile, is working on a vehicle that will take humans to Mars.
According to Musk, it will fly for the first time in 2019, although he admitted that his “timelines historically have been optimistic”.
