“Mars should have really great bars,” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk laughed, “a Mars bar!”
In a Q&A with Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of the HBO show Westworld and Musk’s friend and drinking buddy, Musk gave the audience at SXSW a glimpse of what day-to-day living might be like on the red planet.
Despite the Mars bars, the rest of Musk’s description didn’t exactly sound like happy hour. While discussing humanity’s imminent future on a different planet, Musk also discussed the physical and mental hardships the earliest settlers might face on their journey.
“There are a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial resources that are needed,” Musk described. “And for the people who do go it will be far more dangerous.”
Musk went so far as to compare his advertising of life on Mars with Ernest Shackleton’s infamous advertisement for an arctic expedition.
“I mean really, it kind of reads like Shackleton’s ad for Antarctic explorers: difficult, dangerous, good chance you will die,” he said. That line didn’t get as many laughs as “Mars bars.”
Despite trying to rally a crew to inhabit Mars’ first city, Musk has been consistent in reminding audiences that the journey is perilous.
“Probably people will die,” he admitted in an interview with The Washington Post. With this reason in mind, the first Martian city will have a minimal population to sustain itself.
“The first mission wouldn’t have a huge number of people on it because if something goes wrong, we want to risk the least number of lives as possible,” he said. At least the bars won’t be crowded.
