Billionaire CEOs aren’t cut out for a trip to Mars

Can we all tap the brakes on how amazing it would be to go to Mars?

RELATED: Why we’re all excited about the Mars landing

First we had Tesla CEO Elon Musk saying that he wants to go to Mars. Now, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a recent interview that he “absolutely” would go to the Red Planet.

No offense to either of these two titans of industry, but both of these guys would be dead within days of landing. Who are they trying to kid?

Dennis is 54, currently makes about $15 million dollars a year, and is used to flying around in private jets and having staff bring him his continental breakfast. Elon, with an estimated net worth of over $22 billion, is not necessarily mowing his own lawn.

So, why are these interviewers pandering to these guys? Where’s the push back? How about a follow up question like, “when’s the last time you did manual labor of any kind?”

I think what happens is that when you rise to this level of success, you forget what it’s like to do really hard work. I’m talking about physical work.

If and when the first few hundred humans reach the surface of Mars, it’s going to be a hellhole of death and destruction, while they attempt to carve out an inhabitable living space. I have serious doubt that the CEO of Boeing, who’d be pushing at least 60 by the time the spacecraft landed, would be jumping out of the spacecraft and volunteering to do the heavy lifting.

As for Musk, he famously lost his composure when his mini-submarine couldn’t make it through a cave to rescue some kids. How’s he going to mentally deal with living on mars?

This is not to say what these two do isn’t hard work — it’s just not “go to Mars” work. Building and running multi-billion dollar companies is obviously a huge endeavor, but that skillset doesn’t necessarily translate to interstellar space travel.

Knowing your own limitations is an underrated skill in my book. These two clearly don’t get it in my opinion. Building airplanes and electric cars does not mean you can successfully live on another planet.

For instance, I’m not a mountain climber. I’m not going to summit Mt. Rainier. I can hike, but climbing? Not so much. If I was ever in an interview and was asked about being on top of Mt. Everest, I wouldn’t puff my chest out and talk about how I’d absolutely love to do that.

Let me offer up a little unsolicited advice to all these wannabe Neil Armstrongs. When you’re on some panel, or being interviewed in a swanky hotel room in LA, and someone asks you about going to Mars, slap your knee and chuckle.

Then say something like, “are you kidding? I’m not cut out for that kind of adventure, but here’s what I think about the possibility of actually getting human beings to Mars.”

Sorry guys, but your entitled billionaire ego is showing.