Elon Musk has made no secret, over the past several years, of his ambition to colonize Mars (and if anyone can pull it off, he can). With that in mind, here’s something remarkable that I just learned today:
Those of you of a “certain age” will remember the name Werner von Braun — a former Nazi rocket scientist who became the chief architect of America’s space program in the postwar era. (You may even remember that he was immortalized in song by the great Tom Lehrer.)
Well, it seems that in 1949, von Braun wrote a sci-fi novel called Project Mars: A Technical Tale. It told the story of an expedition to the Red Planet, and an encounter with its humanoid inhabitants, whose advanced civilization is led by a council of ten under the supervision of a supreme leader.
That leader’s title?
The Elon.
I kid you not. More here.