Elon Musk wants to create a permanent human colony on Mars. He has recently announced plans to land the first human on the Red Planet within this decade, with the view to establishing a million-strong Martian colony within 20–30 years. This plan is logistically ludicrous, strategically ill advised, and scientifically and politically divisive and dangerous. Musk is utilising his vast fortune to try to reshape human destiny. We need to hit pause before his plans damage the international balance in space.

While Musk has a history of making science-fiction-like claims, he has also been the most successful technological entrepreneur of our time. He singlehandedly transformed the auto industry, making electric cars a practical reality within less than a decade, and created the first new rocket engine design in the US in more than a generation, ultimately enabling private industry to eclipse NASA in their ability to deliver humans and payloads into near-Earth orbit.   

I have immense respect for Elon Musk’s accomplishments and his skill and acumen as an entrepreneur. He gave me two personal tours of SpaceX, which blew me away, and I have always admired his ability to think outside the box when creating new technologies. I am not alone in this regard: given his many successes, a lot of people are willing to give him a pass  when he makes outrageous proposals that don’t pan out, such as the claim that his boring company will soon allow the supersonic transportation of people in underground tunnels between LA and San Francisco, or beneath the Atlantic.

His Mars plans are dangerously different, however.