Elon Musk Wants to Nuke Mars, Stephen Colbert Calls Him a ‘Supervillain’

During the second episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, things got scientific really quickly with SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk on the show. Musk said Mars would need to be heated up, either the fast way or the slow way. First, by warming it up, which Musk said could be achieved either by generating greenhouse gasses to trap heat (the “slow method”), or by dropping thermonuclear weapons near the poles (the “fast method”). “Superman doesn’t say ‘We’ll drop thermonuclear bombs.’ That’s Lex Luthor, man”.

Musk took the joking in stride, correcting the comedian when he called him one of the CEOs of SpaceX.

Musk and Colbert segue into talking about living on Mars, which Musk believes we can one day do.

The pair later discussed the means by which humans would reach Mars, including the prototype Falcon rocket, which very almost landed on a drone ship out at sea earlier this year before exploding spectacularly.

Musk, who chairs electric vehicle company Tesla Motors and heads solar-power company SolarCity, announced in January his envisions to build a Hyperloop test track in Texas and create satellites that expand Internet access all the way to Mars. Colbert said that he even questioned whether they’d make it to air on time Tuesday night.

When you like a planet and think that there’s a distant future possibility of you moving to that planet, what do you do?

The next leap is getting people up to the red planet.

Jury’s still out on how the global space community will feel on letting Musk hurl nukes at the planet’s surface, however.

Musk went on to correct Colbert after the host said that a SpaceX rocket would land on a “barge”.

Musk: You’d warm it up.