I am not sure we disagree really based on what you write here. You might want to read this story I wrote on Musk earlier. Perhaps you already read it: https://medium.com/star-gazers/steve-jobs-elon-musk-and-utopia-71ee2feccdad

That is my criticism of Elon Musk’s technology focused solutions to human problems. I think we both as social democrats put a lot more faith into political solutions. That society must be organized in different ways than today. More human friendly cities focused more on being walkable, bikable and practical for public transportation. I don’t actually drive myself. I don’t have a drivers license so I very much depend on cities being easy to navigate for someone on foot or taking public transport. Elon Musk’s tunnel infested LA from hell is not my idea of a brave new world.

As for Mars colonization, I think that will mostly fail but I also don’t think that failure matters as I elaborate on here: https://erik-engheim.medium.com/elon-musks-mars-colonization-will-fail-but-that-doesn-t-matter-4702e8359c62

The brilliance of the Mars plans of Elon Musk is how they concentrated the talents of the space industry to finally produce a real leap in technology that benefits the whole industry. We may not need to setttle Mars, but we absolutely need the cheaper rockets Elon is building. They dramatically lower cost of access to space which means satellites and scientific study of our solar system will become dramatically cheaper. But the price drop is so large that it will open up entirely new ways of using space.

We will be able to explore the planets in ways that have been impossible before. People can take a dump on space exploration but without it we wouldn’t have had current climate models. Satellites have played a crucial role in creating climate models and generating the proof we need that the climate is rapidly changing.