Musk's plan for 'futuristic Noah's Ark' on Mars trashed by scientists

Elon Musk's plan to take a 'futuristic Noah's Ark' to Mars has been ridiculed by scientists who say the claim is little more than 'a brilliant sound bite' and the reality is centuries off and would be incredibly difficult to achieve. Musk, 50, told Time magazine on Monday that he had big plans for the next phase of space exploration after SpaceX's Starship rockets land on Mars within the next five years. Musk said on Monday he hopes to take a 'Noah's Ark' to the red planet Musk was on Monday named Time magazine's person of the year for 2021 Roger Wiens, a scientist based at Los Alamos in New Mexico, who is currently leading the SuperCam laser instrument on the Perseverance rover on Mars, told DailyMail.com the idea was 'a brilliant sound bite.' Roger Wiens, a scientists based at Los Alamos, who is currently working on the Perseverance rover as it explores Mars, said he thought Musk's plan for a Noah's Ark was 'a good sound bite' Jonathan McDowell said he expects Musk's vision of animals on Mars will take 'multiple centuries' Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was equally skeptical. The FCC application shows the orbital launch could take place anytime between December 20, 2021 and March 1, 2022, from SpaceX's testing facility in Boca Chica, Texas The billionaire said Starship's first flight into orbit would come in the first three months of 2022 and on November 17 he narrowed this down to January However, the Musk-led company still needs to wait for the Federal Aviation Administration to complete its environmental assessment before Starship can leave the ground 'There's a lot of risk associated with this first launch,' Musk said.