home, he is referring to an unimaginably distant astronomical problem—not an impending apocalypse.
Why Mars Comes Into the Conversation
Musk has frequently described Mars as a kind of long-term “life insurance” for civilization. His argument is that if humanity becomes capable of maintaining an independent civilization on another planet, a catastrophe affecting Earth would not necessarily mean the extinction of humanity.
That vision is one reason SpaceX has continued to focus heavily on developing technologies intended for eventual human missions to Mars.
But turning Mars into a self-sustaining civilization would
