> Uh no, this has been one of his passions for a very long time. It’s the reason SpaceX exists:

How does that contradicts the premise?

SpaceX is primarily (emphasis on is) in the business of reusable rockets.

Musk launched the Mars colonization idea as a self promotional venture.

There are many things Musk said about Mars which are borderline retarded

Starting from the fact that he wants to colonize Mars, I am much more interested in the exploration and I believe it defines human nature much more than simply being a billionaire with a colonialist mindset.

For example

- Humans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess he believes that his life (and other billionaires like him) must be preserved. I'm not sure about regular folks like most of us...

- “I feel fairly confident that we can complete the ship and be ready for a launch in about five years. Five years seems like a long time to me” this is from 2018, it hasn't aged very well

- I think fundamentally the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we’re a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species than if we’re or not. Why???

- Musk said there's 70 percent chance he’ll get to Mars within his lifetime, with plans to permanently resettle on the Red Planet. No, he won't. We all know he wouldn't do it. He's never gonna be an astronaut, at best he can be a Bezos.

- in 2021 he said he would send humans to Mars by 2026, now it's become 2029 (it's always five years away). He also said that by 2050, there will be 30,000 to 50,000 people who choose a one-way trip to Mars to begin a new life. Everyone's free to form an opinion on this, I simply call them BS.

I’m refuting that he’s “a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news”.

He wasn’t a billionaire when he started working on it, and he’s been working on it for 20+ years, so I don’t think he’s bored.

The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes, and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.

> The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes

it boils down to the fact that he's lying. And he probably already knows it.

> and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.

Please refrain from interpreting what I say and write.

I do not necessarily disagree with Musk on that, I simply can differentiate from day dreaming and reality.

Mars is a worthy goal as much it is going to live on the top of Mauna Loa.

Or deep down the Marianas Trench.

Musk said it: he would like to go because it's a challenge, like climbing mount Everest.

That's all he cares about.

But lets also be absolutely real: he means send someone to die, he will never be fit to be an astronaut, let alone a space colonist. He's also not stupid enough to go towards certain death after having accumulated an enormous amount of money here on Earth. That he could actually use for the good, but, who cares, buying Twitter is more fun.

It's also honestly quite depressing to listen someone with so much money say that humans are worth only if they waste their enormous wealth on macho challenges.

He literally said that humanity will be much less interesting if we don't become a multiplanetary society, which, assuming it will be possible (I seriously doubt it) will take millenia, if not more. And once it happens, Martians won't be able to come back to Earth, because our gravity would crush their body.

How splendid.

p.s. I'm a fan of retro futurism. I grew up watching movies like Forbidden Planet and reading Asimov.

Musk completely ruined it for me.