Since he left President Donald Trump's advisory councils in June after Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, entrepreneurial icon Elon Musk hasn't spoken much about the President and his administration one way or the other.
But Wednesday via Twitter, the billionaire SpaceX boss addressed Trump's plan to send American astronauts to the moon and Mars, which was announced Monday.
"It is high time that humanity went beyond Earth. Should have a moon base by now and sent astronauts to Mars. The future needs to inspire," Musk wrote, linking to a tweet from New Scientist about Space Policy Directive 1.
"It is high time that humanity went beyond Earth. Should have a moon base by now and sent astronauts to Mars. The future needs to inspire."
When another Twitter user bristled at Musk's space ambitions, saying "or we could just solve earth problems first," Musk responded: "Our existence cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another. There need to be reasons to live."
"Our existence cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another. There need to be reasons to live."
Indeed, Musk, who also is the CEO of electric car-maker Tesla, says it's about making the future better.
"The thing that drives me is that I want to be able to think about the future and feel good about that," says Musk, speaking to the National Governors Association in July. "We are doing what we can to have the future be as good as possible, to be inspired by what is likely to happen and to look forward to the next day."
For Musk, that means reaching beyond Earth, including getting to Mars and building a city there.
"Fundamentally, the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we are a space-faring civilization and multi planetary species than if we are not. You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great and that is what being a space-faring civilization is all about," says Musk, speaking at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) conference in Adelaide, Australia, in September.
"It's about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars."
One must take the long view, which so many are unable to comprehend. Look back to the moon race and the technologies developed, if you can (though I doubt many will). Would we have personal computers, digital watches, the internets....etc, etc? We cannot imagine today what will come from missions to Mars. The moon won't be much of a challenge because we have already been there and no technological breakthroughs are necessary to make the journey. However, there will be technologies created for man to occupy the moon. This is where the next leap will be. If we can do this (I have no doubt we will), then we can use that same technology here on earth, as history has shown us before.
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