In 2008, Elon Musk was dead set on colonizing Mars, and building electric sports cars and just about broke. Steve Jurvetson was the venture capitalist who saved him.

On Thursday night Jurvetson, a board member of both SpaceX and Tesla, talked about why he invested in Musk's companies when the entrepreneur was out of money and the rest of the world thought Musk was crazy.

The answer: Jurvetson wants to fly to the moon.

Jurvetson, who is a managing partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, spoke at the prestigious Silicon Valley Churchill Club, a local tech-industry event series. He accepted the club's Game Changer award on behalf of SpaceX.

He was boyishly gleeful as he talked about SpaceX. His admiration for Musk and the SpaceX mission oozed.

During an interview conducted by Internet pioneer Esther Dyson, Jurvetson dropped several tidbits.