'If he dies there, what should be engraved on his tombstone? Musk frowns a moment, then grins. "Holy shit, I'm on Mars, can you believe it?"'
Of the people alive today, I suspect Elon is probably one of the few who will be widely remembered a thousand years from now.
Perhaps most of all by the inhabitants of Mars.
NB I freely admit it having a romantic fascination with the colonization of Mars after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars:
This is easy to overlook, but if he's correct and will be able to achieve his goals, those 80,000 plus people will have one man to thank. Although it is still so unbelievably hard to imagine that, with so many obstacles ahead.
As with any highly risky enterprise, I think he should be increasing his odds by raising one or more prodigies of his own, that would be able to carry on with his work, if he himself wasn't able to.
Grandmaster Judit, Grandmaster Susan, International Master Sophia, and their parents, Klára and László Polgár might disagree.
László Polgár had a thesis that one does simply raise a prodigy and managed to do pretty well on that score, given that he and his wife Klára proceeded to then raise three female chess prodigies.
Of course one swallow does not a summer make, so it could just be blind luck, but it is an interesting and fairly persuasive case.
I believe one can, though it takes intelligent parents who make an effort to do so, and money as to not to be constrained by social norms. Over the last decade of my life, I've been evaluating how my parents raised me, how my generation and the previous two generations were raised, and constantly coming up with solutions based on the opportunities provided by different income levels. While I'm not a sociologist, I believe I could write a book on my observations, reasoning, and conclusions.
Like in Judit Polgár's development; if a child was trained in a subject early on and provided the right opportunities, then "genius" can be developed. When I have kids, my plan won't be to focus extensively on one subject (like chess), but on several subjects, including Esperanto like Judit Polgár was taught.
The resources needed are less than you would think. A child raised with specific kinds of support and challenges is more likely to have an impact on the world than one raised with every advantage. You can get an idea of the useful kinds of challenges and support by looking at the childhoods of actual successful people.
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0910707561 is a good source of insight based on it. However I would humbly suggest that consciously attempting to follow some of its advice would be legally actionable.
Of the people alive today, I suspect Elon is probably one of the few who will be widely remembered a thousand years from now.
Perhaps most of all by the inhabitants of Mars.
NB I freely admit it having a romantic fascination with the colonization of Mars after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars