Elon Musk's Ark Forgot This in His Doomsday Mars Colonization Project

Tech visionary, billionaire, CEO, innovator and real world Iron Man Elon Musk, neglected one crucial aspect of his ambitious and somewhat apocalyptic Mars Colonization project: the humans he would be sending to Mars, well, are still humans.

• The SpaceX founder is set to unveil plans to Colonize Mars within the year and hopefully, undertake the mission before "radical extremism and World War III" makes it impossible (Daily Mail UK)
• Musk, along with Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking also believe that Artificial Intelligence pose a big threat to mankind's survival (Observer.com)
• Musk believes that World War III will set the world back technologically and would therefore make it harder if not impossible to achieve the mission.

The backdrop of several ships carrying millions of people out of Earth amidst a raging nuclear war instigated by radical extremists is reminiscent of a movie with one glaring plot hole: free will and man's destructive nature. Politics is politics whether you bring it to Mars or Pluto.

Don't forget to mention that the whole thing seems like a high tech evolution of the Biblical story Noah's Ark.

With the ambitious goal of sending one million people to Mars, the fantastic project is well worth a movie or a science fiction novel.

One million people is an ambitious goal and going through the rigorous process of candidate selection will be a matter that will become political in nature. Who gets to decide who will go on the mission?

Who is "righteous" enough?

In all likelihood, Musk, as the financier and father of the Mars Migration Project seems heavily favored to decide.

Assuming that all of the one million would have been vetted and checked psychologically, physically and mentally to represent Earth, the question of the social system that's needed to survive on Mars becomes more apparent.

"In the beginning, there was the word. And the word was with Musk."

I don't believe that the sole raison d'etre of the Mars Migration Project is for the preservation of the human race. Doomsday thermonuclear war scenarios aside, man is a resilient creature and I doubt that even mass genocide will erase all remnants of civilization should the unfortunate ever occur.

Yes, it could set back humanity's requisite technological and industrial capabilities by years or even decades, well in that tangent I suppose that World War III will prevent us from reaching Mars.

But suppose that this project does take off.

Suppose that everything Elon Musk predicted became true. Suppose that a new generation of human beings have indeed successfully managed to not just colonize Mars but more importantly thrive there as a civilization, to what meaningful end do they aspire to?

What would have been the point of propagating a destructive species?

Yes, let's say that we did that. I can imagine staring at the stars on a Martian night and looking at the distant planet called Earth, and saying,

"We did it." 

Then suddenly, realize...

"But what of Earth?" 

Gone.


"Yes, we can start anew. Pray that we don't end up with the same fate."

But we still came from Earth.

What makes us 'more special' than them?

We can't solve the biggest questions and problems by running away from them.