Why should Elon Musk’s “Mars Mission” pay tribute to David Bowie - and even be named after him?!

Achieving the hardest mission starts with a vision. Bowie’s song “(Is there) life on Mars?” Is such a vision. It was first released in 1971, the year Elon Musk (the founder of SpaceX) was born.

As an Entrepreneur, and someone who works with Startups for many years now, I know that even the biggest Corporate company starts with a vision. Idea which captured the entrepreneur’s mind, and made him “start up” a company which should make this idea a reality.

David Bowie was fascinated by the space in General and Mars in particular.

It all started for Bowie, even before June 1969, when the Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Few months afterwards (November 1969) Bowie released the song “Space Oddity” which was written in 1968, and told the story of Major Tom’s voyage in Space. The song was later told by Bowie, was Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey

Afterwards came the song “Life on Mars?” (1971) Followed by the Iconic album ( “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” (1972) which included songs like “Star Man” and others which discussed the topic of Mars and Space.

I live in a country (Israel) which was formed 52 years after it was mentioned in a vision by Herzel (1896). When people laughed at it he told them “If you will, it is no fairytale”. Israel gave tribute to Herzel and his vision is told at any school, every Israeli knows how Herzel looked.

Now it is SpaceX turn to pay tribute to Bowie, who’s vision made us all look the sky asking “Is there life on Mars”. The mission to Mars is set to leave on 2023, which are 52 years after Bowie’s vision of traveling to Mars.

Acknowledging Humanity’s visionaries, who made us look to Mars, will stimulate the next generation of Visionaries to look deeper into space!