"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
— Johnny Rotten
Elon Musk wants to go to Mars and colonize it in the worst way, but he doesn't have enough money to get the job done despite his astronomical wealth. Where will he get the trillions needed? That's the real play. Musk can talk about making Mars a private venture, but in the end, it'll be governments (aka taxpayers) footing most of the huge bill. Just like NASA funded SpaceX's early development, any serious Mars effort will need billions in public money.
As our era's preeminent tech messiah and self-appointed architect of humanity's future, Musk insists we'll be on Mars by 2026 (admittedly ambitious). His pronouncements, delivered with the certainty of a prophet and the detail of a fortune cookie, conveniently ignore the glaring reality that his Starship vehicles still struggle to return to Earth in one piece.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, never one to let ignorance stand in the way of grandiosity, has pledged a cosmic Manifest Destiny, as if interplanetary colonization were just another licensing deal. The problem, however, is that manifesting a dream does not equip one with the means to achieve it. If confident bluster alone could bridge the gulf between Earth and Mars, we would already have a Starbucks on Olympus Mons.
In the real world—the one governed by physics, engineering, and logistics rather than tweets and stock valuations—a Mars mission is not simply an oversized moon landing. It demands a spacecraft that can refuel in orbit, a way to land on Mars intact, and a means to return home. It necessitates shielding against radiation that would sterilize unprotected flesh, medical systems that can function without a hospital, and food supplies that last two years without resupply or rot.
Even Apollo, which had a clear and methodical path, only succeeded because of a relentless national effort fueled by a Cold War imperative. By contrast, Musk's Mars gambit appears to be fueled primarily by his need for public adoration and bottomless government subsidies.
The truth is, we are nowhere near Mars, and we will not get there by mistaking spectacle for substance. Musk's real skill isn't spaceflight but the relentless monetization of delayed promises, an art he has perfected through Tesla's perpetually unfinished "Full Self-Driving" software and a series of government contracts that yield more press releases than results.
The danger isn't just that his Mars timeline is absurd—it's that we, as a society, are indulging it. Every pivot, every reversal, every grand proclamation untethered from actual progress ensures that we remain precisely where we are: trapped in the orbit of a billionaire's delusions, going nowhere fast. If we continue mistaking showmanship for strategy and allow this plutocratic puppeteer to dictate our celestial ambitions, the only launch we'll be making is into another cycle of empty promises and wasted billions.
Addendum:
"We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars."
— Donald J. Trump
— Donald J. Trump
No we won't. Data points to consider:
- Voyager I, launched September 5th, 1977, is approximately 14 billion miles from Earth, traveling at a rate of 38,000 miles per hour. This would be equivalent to 50 round trips to Mars.
- The nearest star to ours is Proxima Centauri, at 4.2 light years away.
- The percentage Voyager I has traveled, compared to Proxima Centauri's distance, is .057%, total distance being 88,200 round trips to Mars.
- The nearest galaxy to ours (Milky Way) is Andromeda (M31) at 2.537 million light years. This would be equivalent to 53 million round trips to Mars.
- The farthest galaxy known to us is GN-z11, which is located about 13.4 billion light years away from Earth.
We may make it to Mars, but we'll never make it to the nearest star (after the sun).
Note: Figures corrected (bad math).