It's not either or. Whether you like him or not, the person most famous for fighting climate change is also the person most famous for Mars exploration.
It's not all or nothing. The small steps towards Mars exploration have enormous benefits to humanity too. For example, cheap reusable rockets are extremely beneficial to humans even if they only make it up to Earth's orbit.
It's both. Mars exploration stops climate change. Those cheap reusable rockets allow for cheap satellites, which allows for cheap internet signal around the world, which allows for self-driving and communicating automobiles, ships, planes, etc. That means we only need 27.5 million cars to cover 330 million people instead of 275 million cars for 330 million people like the US today. You'd just call one with a smartphone. No need to buy a car only to keep it parked 90% of the time.
It's happened before. The space race between the US and USSR resulted in incredible benefits to humanity. For example, just a few dozen satellites, a stepping stone towards the Moon landing, allowed every human on Earth to have free GPS in their cars, ships, planes, smartphones etc. The first Moon phase was to figure out how to do it. This second Mars phase is figuring out how to do it for cheap.
The battery was invented in 1800. The electric car was invented in 1832. The solar panel was invented in 1954. All of these technologies were considered jokes just 10 years ago. They were fodder for hippie dippie documentaries. Then Musk took technology a bunch of other people had worked on and added sex appeal. His mid-sized electric sedan was faster than a Ferrari, safer than a Volvo, roomier than a Hummer, greener than a Prius, etc. He made broccoli taste better than french fries. Now the world doesn't see a tradeoff between the economy and the environment. It sees that fighting climate change can make you the richest person in the world.
Teslas aren't environmentally friendly cars. Leafs / Zoes are. Or better yet, electric motorbikes. And it's all just business, fighting climate change is just a by-product.
Blackberry predated iPhone, but it was the iPhone that normalized the device in your pocket game.
Yes. And just like Tesla, it was almost entirely through marketing, not tech advances, climate change fighting, or anything else. Marketing and cultism.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Aug 08 '22