Elon Musk: Humans Must Colonize Mars To Survive WW3 But AI Is More Dangerous Than Nukes

Elon Musk, the founder of Space X, says humanity must colonize Mars so that our survival is insured after the onslaught of a third world war. Amid rising nuclear tension, humans must make the colonization of Mars a priority, says Musk.

According to The Guardian, Musk believes getting to the Red Planet should be at the top of humanity’s to do list. “If there’s a third world war we want to make sure there’s enough of a seed of human civilization somewhere else to bring it back and shorten the length of the dark ages,” Musk said, responding to questions from his friend Jonah Nolan, co-creator of TV show Westworld. “It’s important to get a self-sustaining base on Mars because it’s far enough away from Earth that [in the event of a war] it’s more likely to survive than a moon base,” Musk said on stage at SXSW, just days after Donald Trump announced plans to meet the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, in an attempt to defuse rising nuclear tension.

Space X is currently working on a vehicle that will take humans to Mars in a 100-meter ship codenamed the BFR (Big F**king Rocket). But building a colony would require “tremendous entrepreneurial resources”, Musk said.  He also suggested that Mars may be an “escape hatch for rich people.”He said, “It will be like Shackleton’s ad for Antarctic explorers: ‘Difficult, dangerous, a good chance you’ll die, excitement for those who survive.’ That kind of thing.”

He also said those risks may outweigh the rewards. “There’s not many people who will want to go in the beginning,” he said, adding that over time the Red Planet colony would be hospitable and have “great bars. The Mars Bar! I love dad jokes, I’m a dad!”

The BFR will fly for the first time in the first half of 2019, Musk said, acknowledging that his “timelines historically have been optimistic”.  Musk said he initially gave SpaceX and Tesla an estimated likelihood of success of just 10 %. “I wouldn’t let my friends invest because I didn’t want them to lose their money,” he said of SpaceX. Instead, he funneled his own money, from the sale of PayPal, into the businesses. “SpaceX is alive by the skin of its teeth. So is Tesla. If things had gone a little bit the other way, both companies would be dead.”

But Musk also had a warning for humanity. “Mark my words,” he said, “AI is much more dangerous than nukes.”

Fmr Space-X Boss Launching Satellites to Put Decentralized Internet & Cryptocurrency In Space

The former vice president of Space-X is working with Nexus to host decentralized internet and cryptocurrency platforms in space.

Elon Musk proposes city-to-city travel by rocket, right here on Earth

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled revised plans to travel to the Moon and Mars at a space industry conference today, but he ended his talk with a pretty incredible promise: using that same interplanetary rocket system for long distance travel on Earth. Musk showed a demonstration of the idea on stage, claiming that it will allow passengers to take “most long distance trips” in just 30 minutes, and go “anywhere on Earth in under an hour” for around the same price of an economy airline ticket.

Musk proposed using SpaceX’s forthcoming mega-rocket (codenamed “Big Fucking Rocket” or BFR for short) to lift a massive spaceship into orbit around the Earth. The ship would then settle down on floating landing pads near major cities. Both the new rocket and spaceship are currently theoretical, though Musk did say that he hopes to begin construction on the rocket in the next six to nine months.

Via The Verge

The post Elon Musk proposes city-to-city travel by rocket, right here on Earth appeared first on Intellihub.

Geophysicists Say the Earth’s Magnetic Poles Could Be About to Flip

(ANTIMEDIA) Life on Earth would likely not exist without the geomagnetic field that encases the planet. The product of iron convection churning deep within the planet’s outer core, the magnetosphere creates a literal force field that prevents solar winds from breaking down our atmosphere and allowing radioactive particles to besiege the surface. It has functioned in perpetuity for over 3 billion years, but every few hundred thousand years or so, the poles flip, weakening the field and leaving the Earth vulnerable to charged particles. The last magnetic pole flip took place during the Stone Age, 780,000 years ago. New evidence suggests the next reversal may be close.

According to geophysicists, over the last 160 years the strength of the geomagnetic field has declined at an accelerating rate. The most salient example of this weakening is the South Atlantic Anomaly, the name given to a geographic expanse stretching from Zimbabwe to Chile, where the field has grown so weak that satellites are no longer protected from radiation. In 2012, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft experienced such extreme disturbance that it had to shut down and reboot.

Recent observatory and satellite data show that a magnetic pole reversal has already occurred beneath Southern Africa. If a compass were burrowed deep below the surface here and pointed north, it would register south.

Numerical simulations show circumstances like the South Atlantic Anomaly appearing just before pole reversals.

This evidence suggests to scientists that the next magnetic field reversal — which is long overdue — could be closer than expected, though the timeframe for that in geological terms is still in thousand-year increments. The poles flipping would not likely portend the apocalypse, but there would be significant global consequences.

According to two geophysicists familiar with the recent observations:

“Such a major change would affect our navigation systems, as well as the transmission of electricity. The spectacle of the northern lights might appear at different latitudes. And because more radiation would reach Earth’s surface under very low field strengths during a global reversal, it also might affect rates of cancer.”

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Elon Musk’s Crazy Idea to Solve Highway Traffic Looks Like It Is Actually Happening

January 26, 2017   |   Everett Numbers

(ANTIMEDIA) — Forget flying cars. Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is going underground as soon as next month, the billionaire teased on Twitter this week. Inspired by Los Angeles’ car congestion, his enthusiasm for tunnels has grown since meeting with President Donald Trump.

“Exciting progress on the tunnel front,” Musk tweeted Wednesday morning. “Plan to start digging in a month or so.”

Known for chasing seemingly unattainable goals, the innovator who upturned the mobile finance industry by helping develop PayPal is now sounding quite serious about burrowing underneath L.A. and building new tunnels to alleviate the gridlock above.

Musk may not have to dig too deep into his own pockets, however. Last November, Californians voted in favor of big infrastructure spending, while much of the rest of the country elected President Trump, who has vowed to approve some $1 trillion for shovel-ready jobs.

In 2015, L.A. drivers spent an average of 81 hours idling on freeways, making the city the worst in the country for traffic jams, according to Inrix.

“Traffic is driving me nuts,” Musk tweeted in December. “Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.”

At the time, Musk declared his future tunneling business to be named The Boring Company. He didn’t come up with the idea out of boredom, though. He just wanted to get to the airport sooner, and who doesn’t? Responding to other tweets, he said his initial project would run from “across from my desk at SpaceX,” to “Crenshaw and the 105 Freeway, which is 5 mins from LAX.”

Musk met with Trump on Monday and praised the anticipated new secretary of state Rex Tillerson the following day on Twitter. Is Musk, a clean energy entrepreneur, making good with an old school oil tycoon? With Trump promising to allocate $1 trillion of taxpayer funds towards infrastructure programs, it’s not a far cry to assume Musk is interested.

Indeed, tunneling largely depends on government spending, which makes up 69.5 percent of the industry’s revenue, USA Today reported.

However, there are still issues of regulation, especially in California and particularly Los Angeles, where permits can be hard to come by. That may be the determining factor as to whether there will be any light at the end of Musk’s tunnel vision.

---

This article (Elon Musk’s Crazy Idea to Solve Highway Traffic Looks Like It Is Actually Happening) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Everett Numbers and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.