This is John Batchel, a conversation with my colleague Brandon Wykert of the national interest

about Elon Musk's ambition for Mars and robotics. Elon Musk's vision for SpaceX is not to get rich,

it's to get to Mars, to build a colony, a self-sustainable colony on Mars, Robotics. Brandon puts it all together here.

Why robotics are important to Musk.

Why he's talking them up.

Why he's using them at Tesla.

He wants beta to solve itself.

Why?

Mars. Mars.

In his lifetime or his children's lifetime.

Here's Brendan Walker to explain, and I endorse Martian Chronicles, and I endorse the robotics on Mars.

Well, it is imaginable, and obviously this is exactly what Musk is thinking.

I think when Musk is talking about having these robots with AI available to as many

people as possible, he's thinking scaling for the Mars colony.

So the more people who are using this product on Earth, the more these companies creating

the AIs and the machines can figure out the problems and augment them and make them more efficient, better, able to do more tasks, and then those systems could eventually be deployed to Mars, which then could basically automate a colony before humans ever landed there.

You're absolutely correct. The machine presence in space, even now, is key. We've explored Mars, not with people, but with robots.

And so you and Musk are right on the money there. And I think actually the reason he's probably

wanting more people to have these machines is to basically work out the kinks in the machines faster rather than keeping it in a lab. Eventually,

yes, it will get to where you're saying it.