The 21st century space race driven by celebrity owned private companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a new supporter, and possible participant: LSU head football coach Les Miles.

As satellite camps remain a hot topic, Miles plans to get a jumpstart on talent beyond that on our home planet.

Always supportive of initiatives that bring more public support to SpaceX’s ultimate mission of colonizing Mars, Musk told Saturday Down South, “I applaud Les’ passion and drive to pursue success outside of traditional boundaries. It’s this kind of desire that first led mankind to look to the stars and imagine walking on the moon.”

But further conversations with Musk revealed a less united front between he and Miles.

“I’ve told Les that our mission at SpaceX is to help colonize Mars, yet I’m not sure he fully understood this. He seems to think there are millions of people already living there. He also kept drawing a parallel between satellite camps on Mars and punters from Australia. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that.”

However, Miles could not be more enthusiastic, though his passion for the “Red Planet” extends beyond the sport of football.

“Ever since I saw Matt Damon living on potatoes using his own feces, I’ve been fascinated with Mars. For over a year now, I’ve been, well, going number two in my backyard garden.”

A known amateur horticulturalist, Miles seems to have become somewhat obsessive with certain elements of the recent blockbuster film, The Martian.

“Kathy keeps telling me that our yard smells like s**t and there’s no way she’s going to touch anything grown in the garden, but she’s missing the bigger picture I think.”

Miles has also become a student of the various SpaceX spacecrafts — specifically, the Dragon spacecraft.

While the Dragon is currently being used to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, SpaceX plans to eventually use it to transport people to Mars. That will be accomplished by a future version of the spacecraft, dubbed Red Dragon.

Miles is concerned about a few design elements of the Dragon spacecraft, notably the spaciousness.

“Elon needs to reconsider the size of the seats inside the Dragon. I don’t see how an offensive tackle would fit in these tiny seats.”

“We play smash-mouth football at LSU, and my guys are big boys. We need spacecraft that can accommodate our style of football.”

Musk dismissed the criticism quickly.

“I just sent a rocket to space, flew around a bit up there, then landed it on a robot-controlled platform in the Pacific Ocean. I think I can figure out how to make the Dragon work for offensive linemen.”

Curious if other coaches have similar intergalactic ambitions, we reached out to several high-profile names. Each coach dismissed the idea as ridiculous with the exception of one: Jim Harbaugh.

Harbaugh noted, “There’s no way that Les beats the University of Michigan to Mars. I can assure you that we will be the first Power 5 football program to hold a satellite camp on other planets.”

There have been whispers that Harbaugh is working with Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his new company Blue Origin on beating the Miles/Musk joint venture to the “Red Planet.”

We reached out to Bezos for comment, but he did not return our call.

Obligatory disclaimer: This was a satire