Step away from the nuclear weapons…. (Source: AFP)

Gentrification generally involves the slow replacement of local people by an influx of newbies drawn to a formerly grubby area by nice new artisan bakeries and rubbish new-build flats.

But Elon Musk has a different idea about to turn uninhabitable places into lovely new neighbourhoods.

Back in 2015, the billionaire famously suggested the best way to ‘terraform’ Mars and make it suitable for human habitation is by hitting it with nuclear weapons.

Which, let’s face it, is probably what your average gentrifier would have said about ‘Forest Gate Village’ in East London a few short years ago.


The theory behind Elon’s plan relies on melting the polar ice caps of Mars to release CO2 into the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect which increases pressure and temperature.



He proposed to do this by creating small artificial stars powered by nuclear fusion reactions, which would work just like our own sun.

Scientists were not entirely convinced by Elon’s plan and feared nuking the Red Planet would be counterproductive and make it even less hospitable.

Nowadays, Elon appears to be more interested in memes than nuking Mars.

So when he tweeted the words ‘nuke mars’ last night to his 28 million followers, Musk wasn’t actually making a cast-iron suggestion but perhaps nodding to his own legendary reputation as a ‘super villain’ – and definitely laying the groundwork for some serious merch sales.

He then tweeted: ‘T-shirt soon.’

Nuke Mars! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 16, 2019

Elon could help Nasa explore the heavens (Image: AP)

Nasa recently revealed further details of a proposed plan to use Elon Musk’s Starship in future missions to Mars and the moon.

It released a briefing document exploring what might happen to the environment around Kennedy Space Center, Florida, when Elon’s mighty vessel is launched.

The billionaire’s SpaceX is currently testing a prototype called Starhopper that’s an early version of a spacecraft called Spaceship Super Heavy which could play a vital role in humanity’s exploration of the heavens.

In Nasa’s ‘environmental assessment’, it wrote: ‘SpaceX has successfully demonstrated their ability to service the launch industry with the Falcon family of launch vehicles now developing a multi-mission, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle.

‘The Starship/ Super Heavy launch vehicle would reduce the cost of access to space, exceeding the capabilities of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, enabling cost-effective delivery of cargo and people to the Moon and Mars.’

Nasa is working to ‘develop and implement formal agreements with SpaceX for use of Nasa assets and to provide services and commodities to enable Starship/Super Heavy launches’, it added.

Its briefing documents said the link-up with Elon will ‘support NASA in its continued mission to expand commercial uses of space and the space industry by facilitating SpaceX efforts to strengthen United States space transportation and launch infrastructure’ as well as aiding the ‘US goal of near-term exploration’,

‘It would also provide greater mission capability to Nasa and SpaceX by continuing the development of ever-evolving next-generation launch vehicles and spacecraft,’ it added.

Smoke billows around Elon Musk’s Starhopper as it blasts off during a successful test (Image: SpaceX)

Elon Musk successfully carried out a triumphant test of Starhopper last week.



During the first test, flames shot from the tip of the billionaire’s vessel as his engineers launched a first test which appeared to go badly wrong.

But a few days later, Musk got his rocket up off the ground. It propelled itself to a height of about 20 metres before touching down gently.

The SpaceX founder was very pleased to see his latest creation do its job.

He wrote: ‘Starhopper flight successful. Water towers *can* fly haha!!’

One of his fans then said ‘congrats’ and said ‘the moon is there’, which appears to be a reference to Elon’s lunar-landing ambitions.

Elon replied: ‘Thanks!’

You can see footage of the launch in the tech mogul’s tweets, which we’ve embedded below.

The successful test capped off a tough few days at SpaceX, which is testing the Starhopper at Boca Chica Beach in Texas.

In the first flight Starhopper was supposed to lift gently off the ground and then touch back down gently in a ‘hop’ taking it 65 feet off the ground.

But instead, flames blasted out of the rocket’s top in an embarrassing premature conflagration incident.

‘It appears as though we have had an abort on today’s test. As you can see there, the vehicle did not lift off today,’ said SpaceX engineer Kate Tice.

‘As I mentioned before, this is a development program, today was a test flight designed to test the boundaries of the vehicle.’

A view of the red-hot point of Elon Musk’s mighty vessel

Smoke billowed around the spacecraft during the abortive test (Picture: SpaceX)

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There’s no shame in having flames shoot out of the end of your rocket because mishaps like this are just part of parcel of testing a spacecraft.


Starhopper is a test version of Starship, the craft Elon hopes to use to send humans to Mars.

Starship was previously known as BFR (Big Falcon Rocket or the Big F***ing Rocket).

Musk now believes humanity will be able to found a permanent settlement on the Red Planet in just over three decades.