During a Monday night South by South Lawn panel discussion on climate change featuring President Barack Obama, scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the latter claimed he’d signed up for Elon Musk’s proposed trip to Mars. You know, the SpaceX mission that wants to drastically reduce the $10 billion-per-person price tag a projected mission to the red planet would likely cost NASA or private interests with the current technology. Whether or not DiCaprio was serious, joking, or both remains to be seen, but it doesn’t matter, really, because Obama called him “crazy.”
According to Inverse, Mars entered the conversation when Hayhoe mentioned Musk’s pitch as a joke. “The reality of it is, if you’re a human living on this planet — which most of us are, yeah?” she quipped, adding: “As long as we haven’t signed up for the trip to Mars. I don’t want to know if anyone has, I think you’re crazy.” Cue good ol’ Crazy Leo’s response:
DICAPRIO: I did.
HAYHOE: Oh, I’m sorry! I take that back.
OBAMA: No, no. He’s… I think he’ll acknowledge he’s crazy.
Again, DiCaprio claiming he signed up for Musk’s Mars mission doesn’t necessarily mean he actually did. Nor does it ensure that, one day, the Oscar-winning actor will finally flee planet earth’s dreaded bear population for the bear-less lands of Mars. Though it does imply a very important question: If we’ll spend billions to save Matt Damon, would we do the same for Leo?
(Via Inverse)