Starship Legacy: A Novel by Not Elon Musk

CHAPTER 2

Elon Musk stood at the window of his SpaceX office, watching the sun set behind the latest Starship prototype gleaming on the launch pad. The massive rocket caught the fading light, its silver surface transformed into burning gold. Five years since the first Mars landing, and the sight still filled him with a mix of pride and restless anticipation.

His desk was its usual chaos of tablets and engineering sketches. The latest progress report from Mars Base Alpha sat open on his main screen, routine updates about oxygen recycling efficiency and crop yields. Good numbers, steady progress. The kind of careful, methodical success that didn't make headlines anymore. Mars colonization had become almost... normal.

He checked his watch – nearly time for the daily Mars briefing. These days, he tried to attend at least three per week, though his team had learned to handle most issues without him. Luke Shaw ran a tight ship up there. The crew had survived dust storms, equipment failures, even that nasty solar flare last month. They weren't pioneers anymore; they were settlers, making the impossible look routine.

"Elon?" His Grok AI assistant's voice came through the intercom. "The board wants to know if you'll be attending their meeting this evening."

Elon suppressed a sigh. More discussions about profit margins and investor relations, no doubt. "Send them my notes. I'll be monitoring the Mars briefing."

He turned back to his desk, picking up a small model of the original Starship that had carried the first crew to Mars. Its paint was chipped from countless hours of absent-minded handling during late-night engineering sessions. Hard to believe it had been only five years. Sometimes it felt like yesterday; other times, like another lifetime.

The computer chimed with an incoming message – photos from the latest high school tour of the facility. Kids posed in front of rockets, their faces bright with the same dreams that had driven him all these years. One girl had even worn a "Mars or Bust" t-shirt, a replica of the ones they'd made during those crazy early days.

He smiled, remembering the skeptics. "A billionaire's vanity project," they'd called it. Even after the successful landings, after establishing permanent habitation, some still questioned the point of it all. As if expanding human consciousness beyond a single planet needed justification.

The main screen blinked with another notification. The Mars briefing would start in five minutes. Just another routine check-in, probably. These days, most of the excitement came from small improvements in efficiency, tiny steps toward self-sufficiency. Not that he minded. Slow, steady progress was still progress.

Still, sometimes he missed the wild energy of those early years. The rush of impossible deadlines, the thrill of proving doubters wrong. Now it was all careful expansion, measured risks, protocol and procedure. Necessary, of course. You couldn't run a Mars colony on adrenaline and ambition alone.

He settled into his chair, absently reaching for the coffee that had gone cold hours ago. At least the sunset looked the same on Mars – he'd made sure the base's cameras captured it every evening. A small reminder that some things were constant, even across the vast distance between worlds.