Human imagination has long been fascinated by the possibility of space travel. As early as the 2nd century AD, the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata contemplated voyaging to the moon and encountering beings there. In 1865, French sci-fi author Jules Verne envisioned space launches that employed a large cannon. By late 19th Century, Russian mathematician and inventor Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had come up with rocket designs to reach space.
The comic strip Buck Rogers first appeared in U.S. newspapers in 1929, and his competitor in the funnies and later on film, Flash Gordon, showed up five years later to further tantalize us with the prospect of space travel. However, it wasn't until the Soviets launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin for one Earth orbit in 1961 that space voyages became a reality. American astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were the first of our species to move beyond Earth's dominant gravity by escaping orbit in 1968 onboard Apollo 8 and circling the moon 10 times.
As a child, my personal interest was sparked by those early exploits, and like it is for many, the heroics of space travel are etched in my psyche. The 1983 film, The Right Stuff, is for me the high-water mark of lionizing the pioneering efforts in space travel. Apollo 13 from 1995 follows closely on its heels.
One of the more memorable lines from The Right Stuff comes when the first seven Mercury astronauts are facing the possibility of the safety of their program being compromised by limiting costs. The person who would become the second American in space, Gus Grissom, expresses his colleagues' frustrations by warning government scientists, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers," meaning, "Loosen the purse strings to give us what we need, or you can forget sending us into space."
Despite my own support for manned (no, I don't have a better term, and "humanned" sounds weird) space travel, NASA's exploits these past few decades have shifted my thinking. As I've witnessed the unexpected long-term longevity and efficiency of the Mars rovers and Ingenuity helicopter drones to collect, analyze and send back data from the surface of the Red Planet, I've come to a stark realization. We simply don't need Buck Rogers anymore.
We humans have evolved on this planet to operate in a fairly narrow band of environmental conditions. If we get too hot or too cold, if we don't have just the right combination of gases to breathe, or if we lack food and water to sustain our metabolism, we "cease to function" rather quickly. However, devices that have been engineered for space can operate in far wider environmental ranges and make humans look like wimps in comparison while running on solar power or small amounts of nuclear material. They can also work around the clock and can, when controlled by artificial intelligence, accomplish exploratory tasks a lot faster and better than we can.
An item on the Trump 2.0 agenda is to send manned missions to Mars. For an administration obsessed with reducing costs, this is a monumental boondoggle intended to benefit one person: Elon Musk. Harboring a delusion to establish a permanent colony on Mars, Musk is the prime mover behind Trump's goal, but the idea of humans being able to survive long-term on Mars is highly speculative.
The fourth planet from the sun has only 38% of Earth's gravity, putting into question how well humans would do there for extended periods. Heavily weighted suits might need to be worn constantly to avert muscle loss, and who knows how a human fetus and child would develop in such conditions. Without a global magnetic field, cancer-causing cosmic rays are 700 times stronger than on Earth.
Water may exist on Mars, but it's thought to be miles below the surface. The average temperature on Mars' equator is -81 degrees Fahrenheit, and regulating that would run up a huge heating bill.
Carbon dioxide makes up 95% of the Mars atmosphere. On Earth it's .04%, and that's causing all sorts of problems. At concentrations above 1%, CO2 begins to be toxic. The idea of terraforming another planet remains the stuff of Star Trek fantasies, and probably won't be realistic even in the 24th Century.
I don't know how much of Musk's Mars aspirations come from him wanting to flee a collapsing environment on Earth that would subsequently lead to a collapsing society. But, like others in the Billionaire Boys' Club, he'd probably be better off using some of his vast fortune to build a fortified bunker in Northern Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, Russia or New Zealand rather than trying to colonize Mars, which, on its best day, will probably never be more livable than Earth on its worst.
A steady flow of resupply ships would be needed to maintain a human-friendly, artificial environment there. And if society on Earth collapses, Elon would then have to say goodbye to the necessary "Amazon" deliveries from his home planet anyway.
Musk's newfound conservative buddies can continue funding his delusions by buying Teslas (especially since progressive buyers are switching to other brands in droves) and using Twitter/X (which also is swirling down the crapper.) And since a Mars Rover and helicopter cost about $2.7 billion to develop, launch and operate, and a manned mission is estimated to cost 10 to 20 times that, in the spirit of DOGE, they can also launch his Mars dream as a privately financed venture. I strongly oppose my government footing the bill for Elon's fantasies.
His company SpaceX has done a credible job launching payloads into Earth orbit, and I don't have a problem with him winning such contracts if they're bid out fairly. However, my new mantra for manned space flight to Mars and beyond is, "No Bucks for Elon Musk."
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