Elon Musk ranks alongside the Wright Brothers and the scientist who brought warp speed light to humanity, according to Star Trek: Discovery. On last night’s episode of the new CBS All-Access show, Captain Gabriel Lorca (portrayed by Jason Isaacs) listed Musk alongside the Wrights, and fictional warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane as peers in space flight technological innovation.
Musk, a noted sci-fi fan, will probably be thrilled with the comparison and the name drop. The SpaceX founder has ambitions to make humans an interplanetary species, of course, with an initial target of establishing a colony on Mars. Musk’s SpaceX has also been refining its reusable rocket approach to launches, which could indeed result in a paradigm shift for how we work in space.
A big night for @elonmusk #StarTrekDiscovery pic.twitter.com/9xs7noHSXq
— Jordan Hoffman (@jhoffman) October 9, 2017
The reference is also interesting because of its notable omission of Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos: This other space entrepreneur is such a big fan of Star Trek that he pitched and succeeded in landing a cameo in Star Trek Beyond as an alien being, but he doesn’t rate a mention from Lorca among the spaceflight pantheon.