Latest news with #Edenic
LeMonde
2 days ago
- Climate
- LeMonde
In Switzerland, after a glacier collapsed onto Blatten, fear is gripping the mountains
On the still-snowy peaks of the Swiss Alps, the first warm days signaled the start of the snowmelt season, with vibrant spring wildflowers and lush green pastures where cows frolicked . But the idyllic picture ended lower down. The valley floor had been replaced by a monstrous, brown mass: 10 million cubic meters of crushed ice, rock and mud compacted together. The sublime had turned to sinister in a single glance. It all began in mid-May, when a peak called the Petit Nesthorn came under close watch after worrisome movements on its northern face triggered an initial alert. Debris began falling, piling up on the glacier just below, prompting the evacuation of residents and livestock − "as a pure precaution," according to local authorities − while waiting for the mountain to settle. "We will be able to return very soon," said Matthias Bellwald, the mayor of the 300-resident municipality. But "the unthinkable," as people now call it here, has ultimately shattered that easy confidence. It took less than 40 seconds for the Birch Glacier, at 3:30 pm on Wednesday, May 28, to bring an end to the 592 years of existence of the village of Blatten, known as much for the geraniums in the windows of its centuries-old larch chalets as for its resistance to mass tourism. In the Swiss Alpine imagination, already rich with legends, this Lötschental valley (in the canton of Valais, southern Switzerland) occupied a special place − a sort of original, Edenic sanctuary. Now, it holds a far darker distinction: It is the first to surrender a village to the combined forces of geology and a rapidly warming planet.
Tokyo Weekender
7 days ago
- Tokyo Weekender
Awaji Island: Where Stunning Nature Meets World-Class Architecture
This article appeared in Tokyo Weekender Vol. 2, 2025. To read the entire issue, click here . The mesmerizing, swirling curls of cerulean and ivory that form the Naruto whirlpools — the world's largest vortex — are just one facet of Awaji Island's prismatic beauty. Floating on the Seto Inland Sea, Hyogo Prefecture's Awaji Island is a picturesque escape in Kansai. It offers lush fields of seasonal flora, charming beaches, hot spring resorts and culinary gems. The island is also one of the country's top onion-producing regions, affectionately known as Onion Island for its sweet, fragrant bulbs. Beyond Awaji Island's allure as an Edenic vacation destination lies a rich cultural history and dynamic artistic landscape. Creation myths describe the seaside oasis as the first island of Japan — formed by the god Izanagi and goddess Izanami, who emerged from primordial chaos and stirred the ocean's depths with a heavenly spear. Today, the island's mythological sites coexist in fascinating juxtaposition with its modern architectural interventions. Defined by Tadao Ando's geometrical forms, Awaji Island's architectural collection is a dream for aesthetes and photographers alike. List of Contents: The Water Temple Awaji Yumebutai Hundred Step Garden The Circular Forum and Oval Forum Zenbo Seinei Related Posts The Water Temple The main hall of Honpukuji is unlike any other Buddhist sanctuary in Japan — topped not by a grand roof but rather by a vast, elliptical lotus pond that reflects the serene rhythms of the sky and surrounding greenery. The spiritual structure, also known as Mizumido (Water Temple), was reimagined by Tadao Ando in 1991. Instead of leading visitors upward toward the altar, Ando envisioned a dramatic descent: A shadowed staircase bisects the aquatic mirror, drawing you into the temple's interior. The temple's outer entrance is pure and minimalistic, composed of a white gravel path and gently curving concrete walls that signify a subtle transition from the mundane to the spiritual. Inside awaits a latticed corridor in rich vermilion hues, culminating in Honpukuji's main altar. As the special head sanctuary of the Shingon sect's Omura school, the temple enshrines Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing. Visit in the afternoon to experience the temple's core at its most surreal, as rays of sunlight shroud the chamber in a crimson glow. Awaji Yumebutai It's hard to imagine, but this lush, expansive complex was once a wasteland — stripped bare after a large-scale excavation in the process of building Kansai International Airport. Tadao Ando endeavored to transform the space entirely, enhancing Awaji Island's scenic splendor with modern architectural elements — designing tranquil gardens, a conference center, a chapel, an open-air theater and other sites where humans and nature could coexist. With a name that means 'dream stage,' Yumebutai embodies the distinct, graceful contours and evocative minimalism of its architect, standing in seamless harmony with the island's serene natural beauty. Smooth concrete planes and precise geometric forms cast ever-changing patterns of shadow and light, yielding limitless opportunities for photographers — or just for quiet moments of contemplation. Hundred Step Garden While one could spend a whole day wandering around Yumebutai, a must-visit gem is Hyakudanen, or the Hundred Step Garden, created in remembrance of the victims of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake. Perched atop a sloping hill, the unique spectacle consists of one hundred square terraces, arranged in a curious cascading grid formation reminiscent of an M.C. Escher print. Each square contains a quadrant of symmetrical flower beds composed of seasonal flora. In his typical fashion, Ando fuses nature and artifice by framing the garden's vibrant organic forms with rigorous precision. As a living work of art, Hyakudanen evokes both awe and contemplation. The Circular Forum and Oval Forum Close by, the Circular Forum and Oval Forum stand at the center of Yumebutai. As their names suggest, the two structures are open-air spaces made of exposed concrete, resembling a stadium or amphitheater. From ground level, wanderers can observe disks of the sky above. The Circular Forum has several slopes within layered walls, which visitors can ascend and descend to experience the space from varying perspectives. At the top is an observation area that overlooks Yumebutai. The Oval Forum features taller, imposing curved walls, accented with an asymmetrical sundial. Zenbo Seinei Tadao Ando is not the only Pritzker Prize-winning architect to enhance Awaji Island's artistic and spiritual landscapes: Shigeru Ban is the visionary behind a breathtaking wellness facility named Zenbo Seinei in the heart of the island. Opening its doors in the spring of 2022, the retreat is an elongated treehouse-like building made of Japanese cedar and other wood, rising above a vibrant forest. Here, patrons can participate in zazen meditation and yoga on a 100-meter-long wooden deck, take in fresh air and enjoy original vegan cuisine. Overnight stays are also available and include activities like guided meditation, calligraphy and tea ceremony. More Info To learn more about Awaji Island, visit their website . Related Posts Defying Death: The Curious Architecture of the Site of Reversible Destiny Tokyo Architecture: 5 Famous Japanese Architects' Buildings to Visit 7 Places of Worship in Tokyo With Unique Architecture
Times
01-05-2025
- Times
Bali honeymoon ideas: the 10 most romantic places to stay
Bali stocks the perfect blend of honeymoon ingredients; beaches that shimmer from black to silver to gold; rainforested mountains and mist-kissed volcanoes; 1,000-year-old lava stone temples on almost every corner (there are nearly 20,000 puras dotted across the island). And that's without mention of the pleasingly priced designer shopping, deliciously hip bars and restaurants, fantastic cuisine and evocative hotels. On the Island of the Gods, romantic places to stay abound, ranging from sleek tropical-modern villas to palatial clifftop resorts, fantastical tented camps and beachside bolt holes. Here's our pick of the dreamiest resorts for a honeymoon, anniversary or special occasion to suit all tastes. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue One of the smartest, most original, sustainable hotels to come out of Asia in the last few years, Buahan, a Banyan Tree Escape, has a 'no wall, no doors' concept that brings new meaning to being immersed in nature. Every part of the resort, cascading down a valley of tangled rainforest and rice fields 45-minutes' drive north of Ubud, is open to the elements. That includes the 16 private pool bales (villas); dreamy affairs on huge wooden platforms with covered bedrooms stocked with sophisticated Indonesian furniture, ikat fabrics and copper bath tubs that are illuminated by fireflies in the evening. Luxury Escapes has regular offers for Buahan, a Banyan Tree Escape, which come with half-board and complimentary daily activities. • Discover our full guide to Bali• More of the best hotels in Bali This stylish resort, sister to Four Seasons Sayan in Ubud, enjoys a prime position on Jimbaran beach on the island's south coast. If the magnificent sunsets don't melt your heart, there's always the Healing Village Spa, where you'll find lengthy heart-opening massage rituals, water purification ceremonies and a crystal-filled colour therapy suite. The bars, restaurants and beach club are all on point and there isn't a bad room to be had; every spacious standalone villa comes with a separate living area, rolltop bath tub, jasmine-scented terrace, private swimming pool and sea views. Book your escape to Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay and enjoy cooking classes, working out at the gym or indulgent spa treatments. • Read our full review of Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay Suffice to say, you won't just be staring into each other's eyes with the Edenic scenes Mandapa has to offer: rainforest and rice fields tumbling down both sides of a steep valley to the serpentine Ayung River; spotted doves and ornate sunbirds pirouetting in the trees; the distant rumble of a sacred waterfall. The suites and villas are downright sybaritic in chocolate tones with vaulted ylang-ylang ceilings, mother-of-pearl chandeliers and hand-painted screens of bucolic Balinese village life. The latter also have large private swimming pools. There's plenty more to keep you locked in situ — from the fashionable Japanese fusion restaurant to the exceptional spa, free wellness activities every day (chakra cleansing, medicinal plant workshops, hatha yoga) and the freeform swimming pools that cascade through the resort's heart. British Airways Holidays has numerous deals for Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, with flights, transfers, B&B or half-board options. • Read our full review of Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve Foot massages on arrival, swimming pools filled with petals and aromatherapy turn-downs await at this intimate resort in the sleepy little seaside village of Sanur. Laid out like a Balinese village, everyone gets their own supremely private villa, tastefully decorated in warm whites, honey-hued woods, rattans and local ikat fabrics. All of the villas have flowery outdoor spaces and most also have private swimming pools. Between dips you can pop to the spa for hot-stone massages, try a private yoga class in a leafy bale, or venture to Sanur's golden shores, a 15-minute walk away. Travelbag has seven-night deals staying in a pool villa at the Pavilions Bali, including breakfast, flights and transfers. • The best luxury villas in Bali A quirky Bill Bensley design, theatrical tented villas, superb restaurants and a winning location on the peaceful fringes of Ubud make this one of Bali's star stays — and one of its most unique. Spend the morning communing with nature on a stroll through the surrounding rice fields before a dip in the tank-like swimming pool. In the afternoon join your fellow guests for afternoon tea and game of billiards in the Officers Tent, the rainforest equivalent of an executive lounge. Later, sample some contemporary Balinese cuisine — duck slow-cooked in cacao and beets, seared scallops with sweetcorn velouté, chilli pineapple with coconut ice cream perhaps — followed by hot chocolate and s'mores around the campfire, and a night in tented suite with a sumptuous four-poster bed, travel trunk drinks cabinet and huge copper bath tub. Choose from a range of accommodation at Capella Ubud, including lodges with one or two bedrooms, and tent rooms with river or rainforest views. • Read our full review of Capella Ubud The view from the Bulgari Bali's colossal reception pavilion will leave you weak at the knees; the pointy roofs of 64 sultry pool villas teeter on the edge of 500ft-high cliffs, with the frothy white waves and piercing blue expanse of Indian Ocean unfolding below. There are bursts of bougainvillea, jasmine and fragrant frangipani, threaded with cobblestone paths and a private funicular that shuttles guests from the clifftop infinity pool down to the golden boulder-strewn beach. Catering to the one-per-cent club, activities include helicopter tours, surf school, private Balinese blessing ceremonies, personal shopping expeditions and gourmet meals. It all adds up to a very special stay. Luxury Escapes has accommodation-only deals available for stays Bulgari Resort Bali. • Read our full review of Bulgari Resort Bali If you're looking for a regal retreat to celebrate at, look no further than Jumeirah Bali, which has been lavishly styled to emulate the great palaces of the ancient Javanese-Balinese Majapahit Empire. Hidden behind high carved-stone walls, amid resplendent tropical gardens and flowing water fountains, are 123 villas. Decorated in calming white and mink tones, even the entry-level villas feel palatial thanks to soaring ceilings, oversized canopy beds, marble bathrooms, garden terraces and deliciously deep swimming pools. Tempting you out of the rooms is Dreamland beach. Fronting the hotel, it's a vision of silver-gold sands, mille-feuille cliffs and surfers rolling in Indian Ocean barrels. Travelbag has seven nights staying in a garden villa with a private pool, including breakfast, international flights and transfers. • Best affordable hotels in Bali Most hotels in Bali offer Balinese blessing ceremonies but they're often delivered by hotel staff rather than ordained persons. But couples staying at the Oberoi Beach Resort can book private blessings performed by a Balinese priest inside Petitenget Temple, a 15th-century pile of burnt-orange sandstone, winged statues, manicured gardens and decorative bamboo penjor poles. Renewal of vows can also be arranged in the hotel's gorgeous beachfront gardens; dinners à deux can be organised in the elegant pool villas. Stay on a B&B basis at the Oberoi Beach Resort Bali — or upgrade to half-board — in anything from a garden-view room to an ocean-view villa with your own private pool. • Read our full review of the Oberoi Beach Resort For something entirely different, consider Aqua Blu. Converted from a former British naval ship, this five-deck, 15-suite yacht, voyaging between Bali and Komodo National Park, epitomises the trend for soft adventure. The plush interiors, a palette of warm woods, glossy veneers, soft ivories and brass trimming are juxtaposed against the wild outdoors of Indonesia — Bali's lurching southwest coast, the dolphin-peppered waters of the Lombok Strait, thundering waterfalls on Moyo Island, Saleh Bay's whale sharks, the puff-puff of Mount Sangeang's volcanic twin peaks, Komodo's famous dragons. The itinerary might sound jam-packed but every moment feels memorable and there's still plenty of time factored in for leisurely swims and lounging on the top deck. Mundy Cruising has a seven-night Bali and Komodo National Park cruise on board Aqua Blu, including all meals, wine, beer, non-alcoholic drinks, as well as shore excursions and non-motorised water sports. Flights are extra. • The best hostels in Bali If fabulous design makes you swoon, then Alila Villas Uluwatu is the only one for you. The resort's unique styling is signalled the minute you pass through the open-air lobby onto a clifftop terrace where sharp lines of white limestone run towards a bright blue infinity pool backed by a seemingly endless Indian Ocean. The money shot belongs to a contemporary Balinese bale cantilevered above the 500ft abyss, but everywhere you look is a masterclass in cool contemporary Balinese design. Energy-efficient lava rock roofs, a robust recycling programme, a sustainability lab and EarthCheck certification makes everything even easier on the eye. Stay in a hillside or panoramic pool villa, take an ecotour and spoil yourself in the three restaurants and spa at Alila Villas Uluwatu. • Best honeymoon cruises for 2025• Best affordable honeymoon destinations
The Age
26-04-2025
- Science
- The Age
Utopia or extinction: The space visions driving Bezos and Musk
What if life in space felt like life on a Hawaiian island, with the best weather all year long? Crops growing in fields laid out in bucolic, tropical countryside in an artificial but familiar and comfortable atmosphere, illuminated by our sun? Billionaire Jeff Bezos, of Amazon and Blue Origin fame, foresees this vision for millions, if not billions of humans, into the centuries ahead. Heavy manufacturing, and polluting industries are operated off world, allowing Mother Earth, still inhabited by humans, to return to its Edenic state. Now, imagine another future. An asteroid approaches Earth at a velocity and size that humanity can't stop. Its collision with Earth sends up billions of tonnes of debris into the atmosphere, creating an artificial winter that chokes off life as we know it. Humanity on Earth faces extinction. But thankfully, 225 million kilometres away, humans are living and thriving. On Mars. The red planet has been adapted for human life, through a process called terraforming, which would raise the planet's temperature and make the atmosphere more hospitable for human life. This is billionaire SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk's vision for humanity's interplanetary future. It can be difficult to see, but these are the broader visions – multi-year, multi-decade, and frankly, multi-century – that the two billionaire space entrepreneurs are pursuing. Musk's SpaceX and Starlink are further ahead in his race to make humans an interplanetary species, and to 'back up' – in the IT sense – humanity. Most of Musk's businesses (SpaceX, Starlink, even SpaceX-division The Boring Company) contribute in some way to the goal of colonising Mars. Musk was inspired to get into the rocket business in the early 2000s when he learnt that NASA could not put a greenhouse on Mars. But his fascination with a Mars colony goes back to his youth, when he read Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel, Foundation, in which a civilisation is preserved from collapse by finding refuge on a remote planet. Since the early 2000s, his Falcon 9 reusable rockets 'have single-handedly transformed the industry', lowering the cost of launch and altering the economics of putting payloads into space. This venture – and Tesla – have made Musk immensely wealthy, worth an estimated $US342 billion ($538 billion). Musk plans to use revenue from his satellite-based internet service Starlink to fund Starship, the enormous, reusable 100-person rocket to move humans to Mars. In 2019, upon the launch of Starlink's first operational satellites, Musk was quoted as saying: 'We think this is a key stepping stone towards establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars and a base on the moon.' But Musk's wealth would be only a fraction of what would be needed to get humanity to Mars, a planet where Homo sapiens would need to be sheltered from cosmic rays, provided food and protected from powerful dust storms in an inhospitable atmosphere. New Yorker writer and Harvard history of professor Jill Lepore sees Musk's involvement with the US government-demolishing DOGE job as a way to support a Mars mission. 'Although there may be billions of [people] suffering here on planet Earth today, those are minuscule compared to the calculation of the needs of the billions of humans that will one day ever live if we can gain escape velocity from planet Earth,' Lepore says on a podcast. 'That is, in fact, the math that lies behind DOGE,' she says, referring to Musk's radical government cost-cutting program, enabled by US President Donald Trump. Starlink is not just a source for eventual funding of Starship but a tool to legitimise Musk's vision of politics in outer space. Under its terms and conditions of use, everyone who signs up for Starlink agrees to recognise 'no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities', which the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says violates the 1967 space treaty that has held the peace in space. In this way, people seeking faster internet speeds can be instrumentalised to further erode the standing of a democratic government. Musk has effectively engineered influence through X, putting his money and his social media network at the service of Trump's 2024 campaign. Likewise, Starlink may serve as a source of political support for his vision of a self-governing Mars colony. Musk even reportedly bought X (formerly Twitter) 'to help test how a citizen-led government that rules by consensus might work '. So what will life on Mars under Musk's vision look like? Over a decade ago, he discussed bioengineering a new species better suited to Mars, a planet exposed to the harsh radiation environment of space, the New York Times reported. Solar panels from Tesla could help heat homes and generate electricity on a planet where temperatures fall as low as minus-153 degrees. People could perhaps live in underground cavities dug out by the boring machines. Perhaps the journey would be impressive. One SpaceX image shows domed villages and passengers on a future version of Starship taking in a zero-G violin recital for entertainment. In any case, even if he is arguably further along in realising his space vision than rival Bezos, Musk frequently pushes out the timeline for the Mars colony. In 2016, Musk said a crew would arrive on Mars as soon as 2024. In 2022, Musk posted it would be in 2029. This year, he suggested a Tesla robot could be sent to Mars at the end of next year, and if 'those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely'. Blue Origin Bezos' Blue Origin has been less public about deadlines but is equally ambitious, if not aggressive in its development. Blue Origin has more than 10,000 employees and successfully launched its New Glenn rocket in January. But in the billionaire spacefarers war for attention, Bezos has arguably gained as much notoriety for the celebrity rides on the New Shepard capsule to the edge of atmosphere with space. Most recently, Katy Perry and Gayle King, of Oprah Winfrey-fame, took part in an all-female, mostly celebrity 11-minute ride to the atmosphere's border with space. Loading Louis Anslow, the UK-based curator of the Pessimists Archive, which explores technophobia and moral panic through the ages, says: 'In some ways, it feels like Bezos was trying to be the antithesis of Musk who railed against DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion values] – doing an all-female space launch.' Anslow noted that any desired effect on Bezos' reputation-making 'seems to have backfired'. Blue Origin, funded largely by Bezos' Amazon fortune, has plans to be bigger than Amazon, a company with a $US1.8 trillion ($2.8 trillion) market cap. Bezos aspires to move 'all polluting industry off Earth'. He admitted to the New York Times, the idea 'sounds fantastical ... But it's not fantastical. This is going to happen.' For Bezos, his space plans date to his time in high school in Florida. Blue Origin has built a New Glenn heavy rocket which can lower the cost of launch – much like SpaceX – to the point that much larger equipment can be put in orbit; and from there, greater things can be constructed. 'It may take, who knows how many years it will take, but we can set up the preconditions where the next generation or the generation after that will be able to move polluting industry off Earth,' Bezos says. This will allow humanity to use as much energy and pollutants as needed – but 'off Earth'. From there, Bezos sees a future in which humans can 'live off the land' of outer space – sourcing materials found on the moon and then asteroids. Blue Origin is exploring how to use lunar dust to create 'solar power systems, power transmission cables, and oxygen for propellants and human consumption'. That will be the moment when space engineering transforms from modules made in factories on Earth to floating Minecraft -type structures. Humans could use seemingly unlimited amounts of materials to build space colonies, solar power stations on a previously unimaginable scale. 'We get to have this energy-intensive civilisation and use ever more energy per capita, and get all the benefits that we get from that, which are many,' Bezos said in an interview late last year with The New York Times. For this reason, Bezos has held up examples of what are called O'Neill Cylinders, which are far more otherworldly than the name suggests. The space outposts would mimic earthly towns and communities, using gravity created by their own rotation, to sustain the population of a small town. Ultimately, however, multi-decade plans require massive and sustained buy-in from the public. Grabbing and holding the public's attention is a key component of private space companies. Footage of Blue Origin and SpaceX's notable successes and perhaps even more so, the fiery 'rapid unintentional disassemblies' of rockets in flight quickly go viral, capturing global attention. Director of the Australia National University Institute for Space professor Anna Moore says: 'People like Musk and Bezos take up so much bandwidth in social media, all you hear is their point of view, and their point of view is very much about the visionary part of it. 'But it means we forget the reality of today how much we depend on space and what opportunities there are for us now,' she says. However, public support for space can be fickle. Anslow, who studies attitudes towards technology, notes that polls of Americans during the moon race consistently opposed the spending for the ambitious project. At the time, 'it was deemed wasteful and outlandish'. However, as the decades passed, views have changed. Democrats saw it as an example of government's efficacy, while the Republicans relished the win against the Russians (back before Republicans – and Musk himself – began backing the Kremlin's views). Today, Musk's animating vision is based on the need to avoid catastrophic extinction of humanity. One need only look at our solar system for inspiration – such as in 1994 when the Shoemaker-Levy 9 asteroid smashed into Jupiter. As Anslow says: 'It seems Musk wants to avoid dystopia, while Bezos wants to create utopia – at least, rhetorically anyway.' Bezos sees another apocalypse: the escalating effects of climate change driven by the deep-seated human need to consume resources. It's no wonder that the tycoon who figured out how to sell a department store's worth of product variety across multiple platforms would want to shift the more damaging aspects of consumption offshore. ANU's Moore believes Musk and Bezos' plans are simultaneously a serious step forward for space and also vanity efforts for billionaires. 'They do have an underlying business reason for doing things,' says Moore, as both Blue Origin and SpaceX race to provide low-risk, 'cheap enough' infrastructure to access space, to be manufacturing in space, and to be generating power there. Loading 'These things will happen at a certain point,' she says. Whoever gets there first will be able to benefit, even if it means the winner provides infrastructure for others to be successful, too. 'So it's not a simple ego-driven story.' As for the prospect of a society where 'a few men with a lot of money make all the decisions', Moore says it's not a good idea for space … or any other domain.
Sydney Morning Herald
26-04-2025
- Science
- Sydney Morning Herald
Utopia or extinction: The space visions driving Bezos and Musk
What if life in space felt like life on a Hawaiian island, with the best weather all year long? Crops growing in fields laid out in bucolic, tropical countryside in an artificial but familiar and comfortable atmosphere, illuminated by our sun? Billionaire Jeff Bezos, of Amazon and Blue Origin fame, foresees this vision for millions, if not billions of humans, into the centuries ahead. Heavy manufacturing, and polluting industries are operated off world, allowing Mother Earth, still inhabited by humans, to return to its Edenic state. Now, imagine another future. An asteroid approaches Earth at a velocity and size that humanity can't stop. Its collision with Earth sends up billions of tonnes of debris into the atmosphere, creating an artificial winter that chokes off life as we know it. Humanity on Earth faces extinction. But thankfully, 225 million kilometres away, humans are living and thriving. On Mars. The red planet has been adapted for human life, through a process called terraforming, which would raise the planet's temperature and make the atmosphere more hospitable for human life. This is billionaire SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk's vision for humanity's interplanetary future. It can be difficult to see, but these are the broader visions – multi-year, multi-decade, and frankly, multi-century – that the two billionaire space entrepreneurs are pursuing. Musk's SpaceX and Starlink are further ahead in his race to make humans an interplanetary species, and to 'back up' – in the IT sense – humanity. Most of Musk's businesses (SpaceX, Starlink, even SpaceX-division The Boring Company) contribute in some way to the goal of colonising Mars. Musk was inspired to get into the rocket business in the early 2000s when he learnt that NASA could not put a greenhouse on Mars. But his fascination with a Mars colony goes back to his youth, when he read Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel, Foundation, in which a civilisation is preserved from collapse by finding refuge on a remote planet. Since the early 2000s, his Falcon 9 reusable rockets 'have single-handedly transformed the industry', lowering the cost of launch and altering the economics of putting payloads into space. This venture – and Tesla – have made Musk immensely wealthy, worth an estimated $US342 billion ($538 billion). Musk plans to use revenue from his satellite-based internet service Starlink to fund Starship, the enormous, reusable 100-person rocket to move humans to Mars. In 2019, upon the launch of Starlink's first operational satellites, Musk was quoted as saying: 'We think this is a key stepping stone towards establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars and a base on the moon.' But Musk's wealth would be only a fraction of what would be needed to get humanity to Mars, a planet where Homo sapiens would need to be sheltered from cosmic rays, provided food and protected from powerful dust storms in an inhospitable atmosphere. New Yorker writer and Harvard history of professor Jill Lepore sees Musk's involvement with the US government-demolishing DOGE job as a way to support a Mars mission. 'Although there may be billions of [people] suffering here on planet Earth today, those are minuscule compared to the calculation of the needs of the billions of humans that will one day ever live if we can gain escape velocity from planet Earth,' Lepore says on a podcast. 'That is, in fact, the math that lies behind DOGE,' she says, referring to Musk's radical government cost-cutting program, enabled by US President Donald Trump. Starlink is not just a source for eventual funding of Starship but a tool to legitimise Musk's vision of politics in outer space. Under its terms and conditions of use, everyone who signs up for Starlink agrees to recognise 'no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities', which the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says violates the 1967 space treaty that has held the peace in space. In this way, people seeking faster internet speeds can be instrumentalised to further erode the standing of a democratic government. Musk has effectively engineered influence through X, putting his money and his social media network at the service of Trump's 2024 campaign. Likewise, Starlink may serve as a source of political support for his vision of a self-governing Mars colony. Musk even reportedly bought X (formerly Twitter) 'to help test how a citizen-led government that rules by consensus might work '. So what will life on Mars under Musk's vision look like? Over a decade ago, he discussed bioengineering a new species better suited to Mars, a planet exposed to the harsh radiation environment of space, the New York Times reported. Solar panels from Tesla could help heat homes and generate electricity on a planet where temperatures fall as low as minus-153 degrees. People could perhaps live in underground cavities dug out by the boring machines. Perhaps the journey would be impressive. One SpaceX image shows domed villages and passengers on a future version of Starship taking in a zero-G violin recital for entertainment. In any case, even if he is arguably further along in realising his space vision than rival Bezos, Musk frequently pushes out the timeline for the Mars colony. In 2016, Musk said a crew would arrive on Mars as soon as 2024. In 2022, Musk posted it would be in 2029. This year, he suggested a Tesla robot could be sent to Mars at the end of next year, and if 'those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely'. Blue Origin Bezos' Blue Origin has been less public about deadlines but is equally ambitious, if not aggressive in its development. Blue Origin has more than 10,000 employees and successfully launched its New Glenn rocket in January. But in the billionaire spacefarers war for attention, Bezos has arguably gained as much notoriety for the celebrity rides on the New Shepard capsule to the edge of atmosphere with space. Most recently, Katy Perry and Gayle King, of Oprah Winfrey-fame, took part in an all-female, mostly celebrity 11-minute ride to the atmosphere's border with space. Loading Louis Anslow, the UK-based curator of the Pessimists Archive, which explores technophobia and moral panic through the ages, says: 'In some ways, it feels like Bezos was trying to be the antithesis of Musk who railed against DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion values] – doing an all-female space launch.' Anslow noted that any desired effect on Bezos' reputation-making 'seems to have backfired'. Blue Origin, funded largely by Bezos' Amazon fortune, has plans to be bigger than Amazon, a company with a $US1.8 trillion ($2.8 trillion) market cap. Bezos aspires to move 'all polluting industry off Earth'. He admitted to the New York Times, the idea 'sounds fantastical ... But it's not fantastical. This is going to happen.' For Bezos, his space plans date to his time in high school in Florida. Blue Origin has built a New Glenn heavy rocket which can lower the cost of launch – much like SpaceX – to the point that much larger equipment can be put in orbit; and from there, greater things can be constructed. 'It may take, who knows how many years it will take, but we can set up the preconditions where the next generation or the generation after that will be able to move polluting industry off Earth,' Bezos says. This will allow humanity to use as much energy and pollutants as needed – but 'off Earth'. From there, Bezos sees a future in which humans can 'live off the land' of outer space – sourcing materials found on the moon and then asteroids. Blue Origin is exploring how to use lunar dust to create 'solar power systems, power transmission cables, and oxygen for propellants and human consumption'. That will be the moment when space engineering transforms from modules made in factories on Earth to floating Minecraft -type structures. Humans could use seemingly unlimited amounts of materials to build space colonies, solar power stations on a previously unimaginable scale. 'We get to have this energy-intensive civilisation and use ever more energy per capita, and get all the benefits that we get from that, which are many,' Bezos said in an interview late last year with The New York Times. For this reason, Bezos has held up examples of what are called O'Neill Cylinders, which are far more otherworldly than the name suggests. The space outposts would mimic earthly towns and communities, using gravity created by their own rotation, to sustain the population of a small town. Ultimately, however, multi-decade plans require massive and sustained buy-in from the public. Grabbing and holding the public's attention is a key component of private space companies. Footage of Blue Origin and SpaceX's notable successes and perhaps even more so, the fiery 'rapid unintentional disassemblies' of rockets in flight quickly go viral, capturing global attention. Director of the Australia National University Institute for Space professor Anna Moore says: 'People like Musk and Bezos take up so much bandwidth in social media, all you hear is their point of view, and their point of view is very much about the visionary part of it. 'But it means we forget the reality of today how much we depend on space and what opportunities there are for us now,' she says. However, public support for space can be fickle. Anslow, who studies attitudes towards technology, notes that polls of Americans during the moon race consistently opposed the spending for the ambitious project. At the time, 'it was deemed wasteful and outlandish'. However, as the decades passed, views have changed. Democrats saw it as an example of government's efficacy, while the Republicans relished the win against the Russians (back before Republicans – and Musk himself – began backing the Kremlin's views). Today, Musk's animating vision is based on the need to avoid catastrophic extinction of humanity. One need only look at our solar system for inspiration – such as in 1994 when the Shoemaker-Levy 9 asteroid smashed into Jupiter. As Anslow says: 'It seems Musk wants to avoid dystopia, while Bezos wants to create utopia – at least, rhetorically anyway.' Bezos sees another apocalypse: the escalating effects of climate change driven by the deep-seated human need to consume resources. It's no wonder that the tycoon who figured out how to sell a department store's worth of product variety across multiple platforms would want to shift the more damaging aspects of consumption offshore. ANU's Moore believes Musk and Bezos' plans are simultaneously a serious step forward for space and also vanity efforts for billionaires. 'They do have an underlying business reason for doing things,' says Moore, as both Blue Origin and SpaceX race to provide low-risk, 'cheap enough' infrastructure to access space, to be manufacturing in space, and to be generating power there. Loading 'These things will happen at a certain point,' she says. Whoever gets there first will be able to benefit, even if it means the winner provides infrastructure for others to be successful, too. 'So it's not a simple ego-driven story.' As for the prospect of a society where 'a few men with a lot of money make all the decisions', Moore says it's not a good idea for space … or any other domain.
