Our future lies on the Red Planet
In his speech to Congress last month, President Donald Trump promised to “lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond”. His claim is not serious, as Trump is far too busy wrecking the global liberal order to achieve such a splendid feat. And even if he weren’t, there’s no way we can reach Mars in the next four years. Nevertheless, it is possible that the new administration, under the eye of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, will make human travel to Mars the main goal of NASA.
The Emperor and Darth Vader may be wrong about a lot of things, but they are not wrong about this. NASA needs a purpose, one that’s worthy of the costs and risks of human spaceflight. That goal can only be sending humans to Mars. This is so because Mars is where the science is, Mars is where the challenge is, and Mars is where the future is.
