Even if Musk is a ketamine fueled woowoo, all of this does point out how difficult it actually is to send humans (not orbiters or robot landers) to Mars.

I too love all the promo or fan art with Starships getting ready to enter the Martian atmosphere with 100 interplanetary Robert Heinlein pioneers onboard, but reality turns out to be messier.

Musk is who he is and I know he must be steeped in his Heinlein. (Grok.) But how about this one: Whatever Musk's own lack of engineering good sense, SpaceX must have some of the best rocket engineering talent on the planet (ours). Just those methane slurping Raptor engines are enough to make me smile.

Spin off SpaceX as a publicly traded company without Musk as head of research and policy. He'll make a ton and Planet Earth gets its talent back.