SpaceX founder Elon Musk, on Sunday, said that his company will be ready to fly the first Mars rocket in 2019. Musk made these remarks during a speech at the South by South West (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. He also added that the possible governance on Mars in the future will be based on direct democracy.
"I think we'll be able to do short flights, up and down flights, sometime in the first half of next year," said Musk.
The first mission is expected to reach on Mars by 2022, and it will carry cargo from earth to the red planet. Eventually, SpaceX rockets will take humans and their belongings to Mars. The ultimate aim of SpaceX is to build a full-fledged colony on the red planet.
Musk also revealed that it is very much necessary to take humans to the Red Planet before the trigger of a possible Third World War. The billionaire revealed that a Mars colony will protect the human species from extinction if a nuclear war wipes out the entire living beings from the planet.
Musk did not want to rule Mars
As Elon Musk is now spearheading the Mars mission, many skeptics have blamed that the ultimate aim of the billionaire businessman is to rule an entire planet alone. However, Musk denied these allegations and made it clear that the governance in Mars will be based on direct democracy.
"I think most likely the form of government on Mars would be a direct democracy, where people vote directly on issues. Everyone votes on every issue and that's how it goes," said Musk, BBC reports.
"Maybe it requires 60% to get a law in place, but any number over 40% can remove a law," continued Musk. He also added that it is very easy to get rid of a law than to put a new one in.
Artificial Intelligence more dangerous than nuclear weapons
Elon Musk has many times warned about the impact created by artificial intelligence on the society. He repeated his concerns in the recent speech too and made it clear that AI is more dangerous for humankind than nuclear weapons.
Musk also urged authorities to frame regulations to make sure that everyone is delivering AI safely.
"This is a situation where you have a very serious danger to the public. There needs to be a public body that has insight and oversight so that everyone is delivering AI safely. This is extremely important. My point was AI is far more dangerous than nukes. So why do we have no regulatory oversight? It's insane," said Musk.
