The African Genius, Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals a need for the story of space travel, genius and inspirational superheros.
“The paramount function of all myth and ritual, therefore, has always been, and surely must continue to be, to engage the individual, both emotionally and intellectually . . . through a solemn conjuring up of intensely shared experiences.”
--Joseph Campbell, The Mask of God, Primitive Mythology
What inspires you? What moves you to action, to dream big dreams? History, Science, Beauty, and Films inspire me. I love bio films. The lives of special individuals who had something to say, who overcame troubles, who were the first to do something. I see these individuals as useful guides on how to be human. They may be the ultimate example or pinnacle of human life, the best, the first. We make legends of them and they become part of our culture’s mythology. We need myth and legend. We need real supermen and superwomen, the more complex and human they are, the better. Those who think and do what we can only dream.
Thinking of recent personal inspirational humans, I have found Mother Jones, Diana Nyad, Shirley Chisholm, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Currently there are bio films about two of these women on Netflix — Chisholm (Shirley d. John Ridley 2024) and Nyad (Nyad d. Chin & Vasarhelyi 2023), and both are inspiring and thoughtful films.
And then there is Elon Musk. Love him or hate him, he is a genius from the African continent, who makes moves and the world watches. He inspires me. Founder of SpaceX, primarily a builder of space ships; founder of Tesla, an electric vehicle company in the US auto market; creator of Neuralink, a computer interface system for implantation in the brain; creator of StarLink, a satellite internet company; founder of The Boring Company, a tunnel building company; creator of the Musk Foundation, a charitable institution giving money for things like green energy and fast train travel such as the Vactrain; and don’t forget OpenAI, an AI company attempting to build safe Artificial General Intelligence. And because of concerns over Twitter’s lack of free speech, he is the new owner of X — buying it for $44 billion. These are superhuman accomplishments.
According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s net worth is a staggering $190 billion. He is a very wealthy, extremely busy, and innovative guy, who inspires fear in many people because he seems so superhuman (even with his fallibilities). But why he is so demonized in today’s corporate media? It continues to shock me each time I read a story by a journalist who writes about the huge accomplishments at SpaceX as nothing much, pointing above all to the mistakes or 2nd , 3rd attempts. They seem to be saying “why should this guy be so smart or so rich”. . . blah, blah, blah.
Is he our modern-day Prometheus or Icarus? He has either given us mortals the power of fire, stolen from the gods, or flown too close to the sun. Or both? Is there some power that is afraid of his effects on the public or the possibilities that he represents?
The story of Icarus from the Greeks tells of how Icarus, son of Daedalus, made wings out of wax to escape, but he flew too close to the sun. His wings of wax started to melt and sent him plunging to his death in the sea. The story of Prometheus is about a Titan, Prometheus, who stole the knowledge of fire from Zeus and gave it to humans. He was then punished by the gods by being chained to a mountain to have his immortal liver eaten every day and regrown every night.
The mythology of the sky and the stars and the universe is ancient. The Greeks populated it with Gods. They looked up as we look up and see something vast and wonderful. Travel to this world away from our planet is amazing. I personally don’t want to go into space, but I have great admiration for those brave souls who do. Strapped into a metal tube with rockets strapped to your back that propel you into a vast space uninhabitable for human beings? No thank you. But that small club of men and women who do say yes to that . . . wow!
Where are these modern-day titans? At Space X. They have launched 20+ flights with Falcon 9 this year. The March 14th launch of the Starship Flight 3 was amazing. What these engineers are doing will affect the future of commercial space flight. It will make space travel cheaper by re-using rocket boosters as well as being crucial to NASA’s plans to go back to the moon in 2026.
Elon Musk has real plans to make humans interplanetary with a colony on Mars.
And all of this human achievement was not front page, top of the fold, large headline, breaking news. We need to correct this trend. We need the legends and myths that surround space travel. A collective moment to look up and feel awe.
April 8th there will be a total eclipse of the sun visible over the North American continent. From Dallas to Cleveland, Buffalo, and Burlington, Americans will be able to watch the moon move between the sun and the earth bringing down darkness. The next time you’ll be able to witness this from the US will be 20 years from now. I hope as a country, as a hemisphere, we share that moment. And dream of going out there, or at least vicariously through our brave superhumans.
Elon Musk does not reflect my identity as a brown woman or my lifestyle or background. But he represents for me a human dream. Humankind can reach high up into space. The math, the calculations, the engineering, the work to achieve this, boggles my mind. Apollo 11, named after the Greek God of light and knowledge who rode across the sky in a chariot pulled by swans, landed on the moon in 1969. Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were celebrated as all Americans were transfixed watching as one people. It was a proud moment, a unifying world moment of American achievement. Why don’t we look up to the stars today? Why don’t we have ticker tape parades for American space explorers, modern superheroes?
It's too bad we have stopped, but it’s never too late.