Elon Musk featured in Chinese embassy event focused on space exploration
- The American billionaire pushes cooperation on self-sustaining Mars outposts during pre-recorded remarks at China’s Washington embassy
- The event with China’s Ambassador Qin Gang comes months after Beijing complained that its space station had to evade Musk’s company’s satellites
Musk’s short, pre-recorded remarks were played on three large screens to an audience of American schoolchildren, their parents and teachers, embassy staff and journalists.
“I look forward to humanity working together to form self-sustaining civilisation on Mars and other planets,” he said, characterising this goal as important for long-term prosperity and survival.
Musk has suggested several times that he is aiming for a mission to Mars, including a pledge in 2016 to build a rocket capable of taking people to the red planet and support a permanent settlement there.
The importance of countries and people seeing past their differences figured as a central theme of the event, which featured a video of American schoolchildren asking Chinese astronauts — known as taikonauts — questions on everything from how they eat and exercise in space to how they train and keep themselves entertained.
