Words alone won't get the stars and stripes to Mars

So you want to go to the Red Planet. How deep are your pockets and how much time do you have?

Comment "America is going to Mars," said Elon Musk at yesterday's inauguration of US President Donald Trump. America is already there, thanks to decades of robotic exploration.

Musk's vision is to send humans to the Red Planet rather than the rovers rolling around the Martian surface. Those astronauts would then plant the American flag into the ground, much as the Apollo astronauts did on the Moon more than half a century ago.

Achieving such a feat – unlikely within President Trump's tenure but a priority thereafter – requires overcoming significant technological and logistical challenges.

From a technological standpoint, yes – it can be done. SpaceX's Starship has yet to reach orbit, and the last launch experienced a catastrophic failure, yet with sufficient funding the rocket could be made operational and sent to Mars with a crew onboard.

It would, however, be an unpleasant and potentially life-shortening experience for the crew. The journey to and from the planet alone would be hazardous; shielding would be required to handle the harsh environment of deep space (not forgetting the occasional solar flare), and the spacecraft would need to function reliably throughout the mission or carry sufficient spare parts and resources to address potential breakdowns.

And then there is life on the surface of Mars itself. It's a hostile place, lacking the protection of Earth. Astronauts would need to shelter from radiation, deal with the dust, and make sure the flag doesn't get turned red in the Martian storms.

Astronauts would need a means of return – unless the mission was planned as a one-way journey.

It's challenging, but not impossible with enough financial backing. It is also not a new idea. Even before humans traveled to the Moon, there were proposals for crewed missions to Mars. The first American woman in space, Sally Ride, got in on the act with the informally named "Ride Report," which outlined how an outpost on Mars could be constructed during the 2020s.

However, all the grand plans have foundered on a combination of lack of political will and funding. In John M Logsdon's book After Apollo?, the author documents the Nixon administration's reluctance to recreate the spectacle of the Moon landings with a jaunt to Mars and instead reduce the share of discretionary spending on the space program, something that has continued regardless of the political persuasion of the US administration.

Still, if sufficient funding flows – and unlike in the days of Apollo, billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos both have big rockets and an interest in outer space – then it will be possible to overcome the technological obstacles. Time, however, is another thing altogether.

US President Donald Trump used his inauguration to reiterate his support for human missions to Mars, although he did not set a specific goal. Yet even the most optimistic observers doubt boots will reach the surface before Trump's second term ends.

The next two launch windows to Mars – when the planet can be reached in the shortest time using conventional technology – are in 2026 and 2028. While the 2026 window opens at the end of the year and stretches into 2027, SpaceX's Starship is unlikely to be ready in time, not least considering the explosion of the Starship vehicle during the seventh test flight.

Musk has said the plan is to send uncrewed Starships to Mars in 2026, followed by crewed vehicles in the following decade. Considering it is now 2025, time is getting short to prove Starship can be launched beyond Earth orbit, let alone come up with a landing system that will work on Mars.

The Register spoke to former Voyager scientist Dr Garry Hunt about the feasibility of the trip. Hunt noted that the dangers of such a journey were "enormous," although compared the mission to the voyages of Columbus, who was warned of the risks before setting off but did so anyway.

Hunt said he preferred robotic exploration but conceded a manned expeditions is inevitable and reckons the Chinese are more likely get a crew to Mars first. The nation is already on track to beat the US with samples returned from the Martian surface.

"Are people going to cut corners in the US to try to catch up with the Chinese?" he asked.

More powerful propulsion methods will also be needed to beat the existing Mars transfer windows and, as Hunt observed, planning for a crewed mission to Mars would have had to have begun in earnest decades ago.

NASA, for example, is still struggling to finalize a Mars sample return mission that fits within its budget. Even with the assistance of a commercial provider, the US still seems set to trail the Chinese. Landing a US astronaut on Mars to plant a flag is an order of magnitude more complex.

As far as astronauts walking on foreign bodies is concerned, NASA's immediate goal is the Moon, requiring landers developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. The US space agency will not want its commercial partners distracted from this goal unless its own aims are also changed.

The next few weeks and months will be interesting as space agencies and commercial companies grapple with the words and wishes of the US administration. It took seven years from President John F Kennedy's "We choose to go to the Moon" speech to the first Apollo landing. Even if funding flows freely, US astronauts planting the stars and stripes on Mars is unlikely to happen before the 2030s and will require the commitment of multiple US administrations. ®

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