Barack Obama Takes Swipe at the Likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, Says We Must Protect Earth Instead of Colonizing Mars

By Jace Dela Cruz

Mar 15 2024, 02:40 AM EDT

Former President Barack Obama took a swipe at the space ambitions of the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos by saying that protecting Earth should be prioritized over colonizing Mars as our planet would be more liveable "even after a nuclear war" and climate change.

Barack Obama Lashes Out at Aspirations of Silicon Valley Tycoons Like Elon Musk to Colonize Mars

At the opening of the 2024 POwR.Earth Summit in Paris on Wednesday, Barack Obama expressed skepticism about colonizing Mars as a backup plan for Earth's degradation.

According to Business Insider, Obama said that Silicon Valley "tycoons, many of whom are building spaceships," should focus on saving our planet instead of investing in dreams of flying humans off to space and colonizing Mars.

"When I hear some of the people talk about the plan to colonize Mars because the Earth environment may become so degraded that it becomes unliveable, I look at them like, what are you talking about?" the former president said, as Barron's reported.

"Even after a nuclear war, Earth would be more liveable than Mars, even if we didn't do anything about CC [climate change] it would still have oxygen - as far as we can tell, Mars does not," he added.

Obama noted that space exploration should continue for scientific advancement or discovery and not for the purpose of relocating humans to outer space.

"I would rather us invest in taking care of this planet here... "We were designed for this place, and it would be good if we kept this place in a way that's liveable," Obama said.

Space Ambitions of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos

Barack Obama's remarks came a day before SpaceX's scheduled third test flight of its Starship mega-rocket, a crucial component of Elon Musk's ambitious plan to colonize Mars. The two previous attempts have ended in explosions.

Business Insider reported that Musk wanted to send millions of humans to Mars by 2050 and believed humans would "highly likely" land on the red planet within the next decade.

On the other hand, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin aims to enter the space race with its New Glenn mega-rocket, which will be tested for the first time in August.

Positioning itself as a rival to SpaceX's Starship, the rocket competes for plans to return to the moon before heading to Mars. However, Bezos preferred constructing massive space stations where humans could stay rather than sending them to Mars or other planets.