Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, comparing the billionaire of South African origin to a pioneer from the Soviet rocket.
Addressing Moscow students, Putin distinguished Musk's ambitions to establish human colonies on Mars.
“You could say: (Elon Musk) is mad in March. Such people rarely appear in the human population, inspired by a certain idea,” he said.
Putin then made a direct comparison between Musk and the scientist of the Soviet era rockets, Sergei Korolev, considered the main engineer of the Spoutnik program who took humanity to space for the first time.
During his visit, Putin expressed hope that the obstacles around the deep space trips would soon be overcome, adding that Russia itself had “certain plans” concerning future space projects.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, was sanctioned following the large -scale invasion of Ukraine, with the European Space Agency (ESA) forced to rely on the Musk SpaceX rocket system to the first of its own Ariane6 launcher last year.
Musk has been criticized several times for calling for the end of American military aid to Ukraine.
Kyiv accused him of using Kremlin discussion points and spreading pro-Russian propaganda.
