London, Europe Brief News – US billionaire Bill Gates said he’d rather fund vaccines to ‘save lives’ than go to Mars.
“It’s actually quite expensive to go to Mars. You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for $1,000 (£814) per life saved,” he told the BBC.
“And so [that] just kind of grounds you, as in – don’t go to Mars.”
Gates made the comments in an interview with the BBC published Thursday in which journalist Amol Rajan asked the billionaire if he would encourage Tesla founder Elon Musk to join the “club of megaphilantropists,” referencing Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos.
“Yeah, I think someday he’ll be a great philanthropist,” Gates said of Musk. “Obviously things like Tesla are having a positive impact even without being a form of philanthropy. But at the end of the day, I don’t think — other than going to Mars a few times, which might cost a little bit — I don’t think he’ll want to spend it on himself.”
Bill Gates added he thinks eventually Musk will become a philanthropist “using his ingenuity.”
Fellow entrepreneur Elon Musk has said he wants to colonise Mars, while Jeff Bezos has also joined the “space race”.
SpaceX, the rocket company co-founded by Mr Musk in 2002, has made it an ultimate goal to send crewed flights to Mars and eventually colonise the Red Planet.
