Elon Musk is back in the news and no, this time he didn't tweet that he was deleting his Twitter account.
He did tweet something else entirely bizarre though: He tweeted 'Occupy Mars.'
This isn't out of tune with the kind of stuff you'd expect from Musk: He's always been very open with his support of more things in space, irrespective if those 'more things' are satellites, or people or Mars. In fact, Musk has always been advocating for more people to go and start a settler colony on Mars.
So tweeting, 'Occupy Mars' isn't the bizarre bit. Along with the quote, instead of a picture of Mars, he tweeted a picture of the moon.
pic.twitter.com/yUUSNdWMEw— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 23, 2019
You'd think Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, and astronomical genius, would be a little better at identifying planets, but apparently not. The picture of 'Mars' is a blood moon July 2018.
People on Twitter were quick to point this out.
That’s the moon pic.twitter.com/OXU81kRNuE— Viv 🍥 (@flcnhvy) June 23, 2019
Hey Super Space Genius, that’s the moon in a total lunar eclipse https://t.co/osZjHnarfK— The Jupiter Girl (@upulie) June 23, 2019
That's the moon 😏 pic.twitter.com/JkrbrL422v— 📸Trevor Mahlmann (@TrevorMahlmann) June 23, 2019
The hero who is going to colonize Mars doesn’t know what Mars looks like. Fantastic!— Ed McCabe (@eddiemac3356) June 23, 2019
Are we occupying Mars during a lunar eclipse or did you not realize that's the moon?— Dave Hogg (@stareagle) June 23, 2019
“Hello, I have no concept of what the Occupy movement or Mars are, so here’s some word salad with a picture of THE MOON” pic.twitter.com/Ey1auLm42o— Lucianne Walkowicz (@shaka_lulu) June 23, 2019
This is the Moon. https://t.co/NXpM9goNj1— Andrew Thaler (@DrAndrewThaler) June 23, 2019
Some had some advice, and quick fixes for him.
hey wrong planet but i fixed it for you pic.twitter.com/zM6blh1IKx— obama means family (@Maskfield) June 23, 2019
Re-delete your account— Ｗ▲ＮＤ Σ ＲＩＮＧ🏴☠️ L Σ N S (@space_is_fizzy) June 24, 2019
How could you jacked this up so bad? I mean, you have Mars and terraformed on your backdrop and you still posted the moon? I can see Tycho Crater.— Steven Baumann (@StevenDJBaumann) June 24, 2019
We should go here instead pic.twitter.com/lHMnfYjSLJ— Targetedfox (@Targetedfox) June 23, 2019
I fixed it. pic.twitter.com/PktsDiDafS— Steven Baumann (@StevenDJBaumann) June 24, 2019
OCCUPY HELL— Satan (@s8n) June 23, 2019
Musk did admit his mistake, and as redemption answered all interplanetary questions, especially if you actually were to 'Occupy the Moon.'
Moon too— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 23, 2019
For sure moon 1st, as it’s only 3 days away & u don’t need interplanetary orbital synchronization— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 24, 2019
Raptor liberated its oxygen turbine stator (appears to be mechanical, not metal combustion failure), so we need to update the design & replace some parts. Production is ramping exponentially, though. SN6 almost done. Aiming for an engine every 12 hours by end of year.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 24, 2019
Full year production is usually ~70% of peak daily rate, so 500/year. Still, non-trivial at 100,000 tons of thrust/year.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 24, 2019