Elon Musk admits "a bunch of people will probably die" in his Mars landing trials
The history of space exploration is rife with disaster, failures, and tragedy—any efforts to put people in a giant metal rocket and hurl them at space have and probably will continue to result in some deaths along the way. Those are just facts, and they’re really not great, despite Elon Musk’s convivial mood when discussing the probable human casualties of his efforts to land on Mars. The inexplicable future SNL host claims that we are just five years away from a successful Mars landing—hard to believe given that numerous tests conducted in recent months by his company, SpaceX, have resulted in explosions. In an interview with X Prize Foundation’s Peter Diamandis, Musk laughed as he admitted that “a bunch of people will probably die” in his ongoing Mars landing trials. Though the interview was published to YouTube two days before Musk was announced as the next SNL host, it didn’t really start making headlines until yesterday. Musk goes on to say, “We’re not making anyone go… volunteers only!”
Over the weekend, SNL made its most jarring hosting announcement since Donald Trump (and also proved that maybe the powers that be haven’t learned anything since) when it revealed Elon Musk as the host of its upcoming May 8 show with musical guest Miley Cyrus. Musk has courted a veritable cornucopia of controversies over the years including, but not limited to, transphobic remarks, spreading false information about COVID-19, being friends with Joe Rogan, and his numerous failed SpaceX launches—and that’s before he laughed on camera about “a bunch of people” dying in his pursuit of starting a Mars colony. A few SNL cast members appeared similarly displeased with Musk’s upcoming hosting gig, especially after this tweet:
Bowen Yang—an actual king—posted a screenshot of the tweet on his Instagram stories along with the comment “what the fuck does this even mean.” Fellow cast member Andrew Dismukes shared a pic of former star Cheri Oteri with the caption, “ONLY CEO I WANNA DO SKETCH WITH IS Cher-E Oteri.” Others were a little less direct, like Aidy Bryant, who shared this tweet from Senator Bernie Sanders seemingly in response to the Musk announcement: