Imperator of Mars

Elon Musk made his stage debut at a campaign rally alongside Donald Trump on October 5 at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rural farm showground.

- ATANU BISWAS

But did everyone notice the T-shirt peeking out from under his jacket? "Occupy Mars" was written there as a slogan.

Mr. Musk's SpaceX delayed its eighth Starship rocket test this week due to a booster problem. The world's richest person is indeed a dream merchant. His SpaceX aims to put humans on Mars by 2026 and then build a self-sustaining city of a million inhabitants by 2050, perhaps under glass domes, as portrayed in James SA Corey's series of novels The Expanse. Apparently, Mr. Musk fears an impending "population collapse" on Earth and wants to ensure that life—of all species—can continue elsewhere if a meteor strike, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, occurs, or if World War III breaks out and humanity destroys itself. As one may remember, in the Antony Hoffman-directed 2000 film Red Planet, set in 2056, humanity has been terraforming Mars as its new home by bringing atmosphere-producing algae to its surface in response to Earth's ecological crises. Sounds somewhat similar?