Easy, right?

All Systems Go

Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society, is arguing — as always — that humanity shouldn’t settle for just the Moon. Instead, NASA should be laying the groundwork to bring astronauts to the Red Planet now, he said in an interview with Forbes last week, and believes that SpaceX’s massive Starship will play a key role in fulfilling that dream, along with the enterprising know-how offered by other space companies.

“They are now creating the capabilities that will allow human Mars missions in the relatively near future,” Zubrin said, per a video of the interview.

Lost Time

The way Zubrin sees it, we’re years behind schedule. He’s adamant that humans would have already gotten to Mars by now — if that old villain President Richard Nixon hadn’t axed the Apollo program, and with it NASA’s hopes of getting to Mars by 1981, he told Forbes.

We can make up for that, though, by going all in on Mars and bypassing NASA’s much hyped Artemis missions, which are anticipated to bring astronauts back to the Moon for the first time in over fifty years.

Starship plays a big role in this proposed Mars speedrun, as it indeed does with the Artemis missions.

If SpaceX gets Starship operational to orbit this year or early next year, Zubrin told Forbes, then NASA could use its resources to immediately send a huge, $10 billion robotic mission to the Red Planet with dozens of rovers and helicopters aboard the rocket.

Once there, a built-in lab inside Starship could analyze thousands of pounds worth of Mars samples collected by the robots.

The ramped-up exploration and additional data gathered from this mission would help prepare for eventual human missions in the future, Zubrin said, perhaps by assisting the development of spacesuits and rovers capable of carrying humans.

Starry-Eyed

Zubrin’s idea is exciting. But in practice, it faces considerable hurdles.

The obvious one is the status of the pivotal Starship, which is still under development and is yet to successfully land back on Earth after flying to orbit.

Recent orbital test flights have been more promising, however, with the latest proving that the rocket could — more or less — survive reentry. But while NASA reportedly still intends for Starship to land astronauts on the lunar surface as part of its Artemis III mission, multiple setbacks in the rocket’s development have raised doubt as to whether it will be ready in time.

NASA’s tough budget situation would also pose problems. As it stands, the space agency may not even have enough money to carry out its highly anticipated Mars Sample Return mission. Getting funds for a Starship mission on top of that wouldn’t be easy, and diverting them from existing lunar missions probably won’t happen, either, since the Moon has more strategic value to the superpowers vying to get a foothold on its surface.

But hey: a man can dream.

More on Mars: Crew Who Spent a Year in Simulated NASA Mars Base Say They Spent a Lot of Time Watching TV