I won’t be taking that risk again this week with SpaceX’s planned $1.78 trillion flotation, pinned on Elon Musk’s visions for artificial intelligence, rocket launches, data centres in space, mining the moon and colonising Mars.

Aged 11 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon in 1969, I was pretty certain that I’d be taking holidays on the moon, Mercury and Mars by the time I grew up.

It all seemed eminently feasible - around that time, the iconic American TV series Star Trek even produced the episode Space Seed, which imagined that we’d be launching huge rockets to distant parts of the galaxy by the 1990s.

Of course, it hasn’t happened. But as a kid I was hooked on the mythmaking.

I spent my pocket money in those heady years on posters, stickers and a plastic Airfix model of the Saturn V rocket: it wasn’t up to NASA standards - my paint job was splotchy and stickers got glued at awkward angles. I had a photo from The Times newspaper on my bedroom wall in England of Buzz Aldrin on the moon:

They were great investments – the stuff of dreams.

And the Space Seed episode, set in the 22nd century, shows the U.S.S. Enterprise discovering a hulking, apparently abandoned spaceship dating from the 1990s drifting in the interstellar void. It turns out to contain a crew in suspended animation, including genetically engineered supervillain Khan Noonien Singh.

Now, amid a new round of space euphoria - astronauts looping around the Moon this year on the Artemis II mission - I won’t be indulging Musk’s plans for Mars. (He won’t lose sleep missing out on my minuscule funds).

CLIMATE CHANGE

Aren’t there enough challenges here on Earth, like climate change, to sort out? Heatwaves, rising seas, species extinctions, and more powerful storms are all fixable if we try hard enough with the inventiveness Musk has demonstrated when not ranting on X.

And the idea of living on barren, airless Mars would make the Sahara desert seem as luxurious as the French Riviera. After the Apollo missions, interest in space travel faded: Gene Cerman was the last astronaut to step on the moon, in 1972.

Even Musk has trouble articulating a pressing need to go to Mars. “One of the benefits of going to Mars is life insurance for life collectively … eventually all life on earth will be destroyed by the Sun… Earth will be incinerated”, he told Fox News last year.

Yes, the sun will indeed expand into a red giant and swallow the Earth as its fuel runs out – in a few billion years. Our species, Homo sapiens, appeared in Africa perhaps 300,000 years ago, a blink of an eye in our planet’s history.

Musk has, of course, had huge success at SpaceX, with reusable rockets and the spread of global internet access through Starlink, as well as electric carmaker Tesla. So the IPO is likely to be a success, even if built on fantasies that might work in Space Seed.

Musk will get gigantic payouts linked to milestones achieved while working at SpaceX, such as establishing “a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants”. He’s now aged 54 - so not long.

The Financial Times estimated this week that most - as much as $1 trillion - “of the value of SpaceX’s initial public offering is based on a series of ambitious ‘moonshot’ goals that investors must bet will be achieved to justify Elon Musk’s lofty price tag”.

The prospectus contains enough disclaimers to ensure that SpaceX won’t be sued for promising too much about space travel. It admits: “Many of our initiatives … involve significant technical complexity, unproven technologies, or technologies that do not exist or may require significant advancement, and such initiatives may not achieve commercial viability.”

There’s also a risk that, when dreams of mining the moon or Mars prove too costly, countries and billionaires like Musk will turn attention back to wildernesses on Earth for mining - such as the deep oceans, Greenland, perhaps even Antarctica, which is now off limits for commercial activity.

Star Trek’s scriptwriters were fabulously inventive - Khan reappears in subsequent movies - by dangling the prospect of travel to deep space within a generation.

In Space Seed, Khan is eventually overpowered and exiled to a barren planet.

“Have you ever read Milton, captain?” Khan asks Captain James Kirk, who passes the sentence, referring to the epic 17th-century poem Paradise Lost.

Kirk replies: “The statement Lucifer made when he fell into the pit: ‘It is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven’.”

Musk’s dreams of Mars are beguiling, but almost certainly hellish.

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A group calling itself “Women Connect” in Leipzig, which boasts more than 2,000 members, even produces an online flier (below) for the Zoom talk due this Wednesday about my “must-read, must-discuss” book, with a flattering AI-generated photo of me against a background of an iceberg-strewn sea.

The drawback: it’s just an elaborate scam.

It all crashes down when I eventually contact the real-world manager of Women Connect Leipzig, Susanne (Susi) Ebert. She has never got in touch with me, and we´re victims of artful fraudsters using artificial intelligence (AI) to spin a deceit that will end with demands for my cash.

Hoaxes targeting authors are getting more frequent - some, like me, are easily initially fooled by praise. Last month in the UK, the Society of Authors and the Writers Guild of Britain published a guide for authors to protect themselves from scamming attempts.

SCATTERGUN SHAKEDOWNS

Most scams, by phone or email, target thousands of people at random with enough suckered to make the scattergun shakedowns worthwhile for criminals. “Congratulations! You´ve won the lottery! Just send us $200 in fees and you’ll get the $1 million prize”. Or “This is your bank here: your credit card has been used illegally, give us your details, and we´ll fix it”.

But the fake “Women Connect” approach is an unwelcome introduction for me to a new and unnerving world, targeting me alone. AI’s ability to churn out an expert summary of my book and create fake advertisements and emails in seconds makes deception harder to spot.

It all began last month with an email from a “Susi Elbert” (spelt with an “l” in the surname compared to real-world Susanne Ebert) inviting me to a Zoom talk with her group of more than 2,000 women readers in Leipzig. (I’ve no idea if “her” is the right pronoun for this scammer).

Among other things, fraudster Susi writes: “There is a depth and intentionality in your writing that invites engagement rather than passive reading … I believe your work would resonate deeply within our community and lead to a rich and thoughtful exchange.”

It’s a bit stilted, but among the book’s best reviews! It might even make it to the blurb on the cover if the wonderful Flint Books in the UK publishes an updated edition.

I’m hooked. Of course, I reply to “Susi”, I’d be delighted.

TRUMP IGNORES CLIMATE REALITY

With U.S. President Donald Trump calling climate change a hoax, it’s uplifting that some people are interested in hearing about how melting ice and rising sea levels threaten coasts and cities from San Francisco to Shanghai. In many nations like Germany, the focus has shifted from global warming to the wars in Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan - and the cost of living crisis linked to high energy costs.

Was I stupid to reply enthusiastically without first checking more? Maybe, but shakedown Susi’s email is pretty convincing as an out-of-the-blue invitation.

I ask for more details, and she sends me a long email outlining themes of the planned discussion on Zoom on June 3: “How does The Great Melt help readers understand the human and political dimensions of climate change beyond scientific discussion alone?” and “In what ways does the melting of ice become a symbol of broader environmental and societal transformation in the modern world?”

Those are fair questions for a book based on accounts of people living and working on coasts or amid ice, and English is probably Susi’s second language, I reckon.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION

But then, buried in the long email, is a first veiled warning that “Susi” may not be who she says she is: “As an independent reading community, we operate with a modest featured author support contribution.”

That’s a bit ambiguous: are they offering me a small fee? Or asking me for money? So I ask: Susi replies that authors typically contribute $100, $120, $200 or more to help promote and arrange the sessions. Given the lure for me of selling more books, that sounds odd, but maybe not totally bonkers?

But the suggestion of paying money sets off alarm bells, even in my head. So I finally look up “Susi’s” reader group online and its social media postings. It turns out that she is merely imitating the real Susanne Ebert.

I then track down Susanne on Linkedin and send her a message.

I can see it coming but still feel deflated when she confirms that she hasn’t tried to get in touch. And I feel awful about breaking news to her about the unwanted impersonator. “That wasn’t me and, unfortunately, I must file a police report for identity theft,” she writes.

I’m furious at racketeering Susi - why on earth go to all this trouble for just $100? (or probably more down the line, I suspect, if I send any cash). And I feel strangely betrayed by it all. For me, past opportunities to speak about the book - at book fairs, to reporters or in podcasts - have been gold dust, both rare and thrilling.

I’m so exasperated that I decide to waste swindler Susi’s time.

I write that I need her bank details so I can contribute to the event.

“TREASURER” IN OREGON, U.S.

Without a hint of geographical irony, she says the treasurer of her German group is in the United States and ensures “proper coordination and record-keeping”. She asks me to pay into an account of someone called Favour Oluwaseyi Afolabi, at Lead Bank, 9450 Southwest Gemini Drive, Beaverton, Oregon 97008, USA.

I have no idea who that person is and of course don’t send any money.

I simply stop communicating.

Ripoff Susi sends me the occasional honeyed reminder in the following days: “Given how active and engaged you have been for many years in climate and environmental journalism, I imagine there must still be many important developments keeping you busy and reflective.”

WHAT VALUE FOR WOUNDED PRIDE?

I start filling out a police report here in Norway, where I live, about the scam, but questions inevitably focus on what I´ve lost. “Self-esteem” or “wounded pride” aren’t among the options for value, so I give up. I report Susi’s emails as phishing to Gmail.

And fed up by the unctuous pestering emails, I send “Susi” a request for a Zoom call to plan my talk. Unsurprisingly, she replies it would “honestly be quite difficult … The structure is actually very simple and most of the planning process has already been explained earlier.”

Susi’s enthusiasm for me is waning.

Finally, I come clean that I´ve seen through the scam and ask fake Susi if such targeted shakedowns ever yield any money. “It must be a lot of work for little return: why not try something honest?”

I haven’t heard back.

Unless you’re Norway.

A decision this week by Iceland’s parliament to hold a referendum on August 29 on whether to start talks on joining the European Union would - if it leads to EU membership - leave Norway and Liechtenstein as the only members of the so-called “European Economic Area” (EEA) outside the EU.

Set up in 1994, the EEA grants Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein free movement of goods, services, capital, and people with the 27-nation EU. They’ve always been an odd threesome, but an Icelandic jilt would leave the couple in a strange marriage of convenience.

EU membership for Iceland would “make an impression in Norway”, but perhaps not enough to swing the nation towards a “Ja” (“Yes”) to joining the EU, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told foreign reporters in Oslo on Friday.

“NEI” “NEI”

Norwegians voted “Nei” (“No”) to joining the EU and its forerunners in referendums in 1972 and 1994. Many voters feared a loss of sovereignty to Brussels, won in 1905 with independence from Sweden. Rich from oil, many Norwegians may have followed Groucho Marx’s maxim: never join a club that will have you as a member.

Støre noted that Norway’s neighbours Finland and Sweden both voted to join the EU in 1994 and that their decisions did not tip the Norwegian referendum - deliberately held last of the three in what pro-EU Nordic governments at the time hoped would be a “domino effect”.

“Back in ‘94, we had decisions to join from Sweden and Finland, that are countries close to us. It did not tilt the balance,” Støre noted, adding that he had campaigned strongly for “Yes” at the time.

“This is not decided by countries outside Norway.”

Opinion polls in Norway point to “No” if a new referendum on joining the EU were held today. One 2026 poll showed 48% of voters against membership, 38% in favour and 14% undecided.

Support for EU membership has rarely exceeded 40% in recent years, despite security fears in the Nordic region after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The war prompted both Finland and Sweden to join NATO, of which Norway was a founding member, but Norway has not warmed to the EU as a bulwark against global uncertainties.

OIL FUND

Few Norwegians complain about the costs of the EEA - about €450 million a year with scant influence on EU decision-making - partly because it’s relatively little when Norway has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, built from oil and gas wealth. The oil fund is worth about $2.3 trillion, or more than $400,000 for each of the nation’s 5.6 million people or roughly the price of an average house in Norway.

Norway, which stretches far into the Arctic, has a powerful farming and fishing lobby and limits food imports under an exemption from the free movement of goods. As an example, a regular can of Heinz baked beans in my local supermarket costs $4.8 - three times the price in neighbouring EU member Sweden.

And Liechtenstein, also wealthy and heavily dependent on neighbouring Switzerland, which is outside both the EU and the EEA, has no plans to join the EU.

Støre said a divisive EU debate in Norway would be wrong at a time of turmoil from the Middle East to Greenland.

Norway has been united, for instance, in supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia. Norway has also backed Copenhagen after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to take over Greenland, part of the kingdom of Denmark.

“Democracy in my country can sustain another big debate on the European Union. No doubt about it, but it will be polarising,” Støre said, adding that such a debate “is not for now”.

“At the moment, I think there is importance in having a country where (political) parties really rally around the main issues as they do now,” Støre said.

So, for now, Liechtenstein and Norway’s odd relationship is set to last ❤️

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