Mars or Bust!

Back during the glory days of the Apollo moon program, NASA assumed that humans would walk on Mars by the late 1980s. Instead, we're still debating if astronauts should even make the trip at all and dancing around who's going to foot the bill if they do.

• Updated 2017

The success of both the manned Moon landings and the unmanned Mars landings proves that we have the technology to put boots on Martian ground.

Remember, however, that the U.S. government paid for the Apollo program. Our nation was all in on that one thanks to John Kennedy's eloquent call to action in 1961. NASA’s share of the United States government's federal budget peaked at over four per cent in 1966, but ten years later it was less than one per cent, where it has remained ever since.

That funding "haircut" forced the closing of rocket production lines, canceled future Moon landings, eventually scuttled our Space Shuttle program and made the Mars mission a dream instead of a reality.

It won't be easy to get those few humans to Mars and back but we can do it. We just have to answer one question first —

Who's going to pay for this?

For starters, the easiest way to truly light the fuse for Mars would involve a U.S. president putting the premise out there, unambiguously, and with passion and vision. Both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama have paid lip service to this but never in a big way and like they truly meant it. The budgets remain low and NASA remains underfunded for a big exploration mission.

Here's what calling for Mars in a Kennedy-esque way might sound like:

"We should commit ourselves to establishing a permanent human presence on the surface of Mars, open to the energy and labor of the citizens of all the Earth, merging support from governments and private enterprise alike, with the ultimate goal being a self-sustaining colony within twenty-five years of the first explorer to set foot on the planet."

We're not likely to hear that from President Trump, although he has gone on the record saying he wants astronauts on the Red Planet in his first term or the second one at the latest. Nobody really seems to take that seriously. If Trump wants us to actually go to Mars, he needs to think longer term.

The call-to-arms (as above) hasn't been said so far because the right way to go is not cheap, and the cheap way to go is not safe. It also hasn't been said because going to Mars is something that Hollywood writers and science nerds like to talk about but not so much the practical politicians who have to justify it to skeptical, broke voters and/or a hostile congress.

Given the government (i.e. NASA) has been keeping a Mars mission on minimal life support through public pronouncements without substantial budget investment and planning, the latest thinking is that the Red Planet is going to require the commitment of private investors in order to get human boots on the ground. Certainly the current administration may be talking big, but their budget doesn't back up the rhetoric.

The right way to go is not cheap, and the cheap way to go is not safe.

You've heard of the Mars One plans to send astronauts on a one-way mission, starting in groups of four. Although it received a ton of media attention because of all the prospective astronauts who have volunteered to go even though they would never get a return flight to Earth, it seems to be dead in the water -- a pipe dream at best and a scam at worst.

Then there's multi-millionaire astronaut Dennis Tito who also wants to send a human crew to Mars in 2021 where they would do a fly-by but not actually land. All hat, no saddle, to a lot of people, but that's how the Apollo program did the Moon. Prove you can get there first before you try to land. Tito has deep pockets compared to most of us but not the deep, deep ones you need for Mars.

Finally, let's consider the visionary billionaire Elon Musk who is talking about his own plans, including bringing the Internet to Mars. Unlike Mars One, Musk is a practical but visionary entrepreneur. Like Mars One, his schedule — based on the closest alignment of Earth and Mars — is to send unmanned robotics and supplies in 2018 and follow them with manned craft in the mid-2030s. Here's a twist, though: the first colonists Musk intends to send to Mars will need to pay their own way.

‘There needs to be an intersection of the set of people who wish to go, and the set of people who can afford to go. And that intersection of sets has to be enough to establish a self-sustaining civilisation. My rough guess is that for a half-million dollars, there are enough people that could afford to go and would want to go. But it’s not going to be a vacation jaunt. It’s going to be saving up all your money and selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies.’

A few years ago, I attended a Mars advocacy conference here in Los Angeles. There were probably a dozen or so very smart people who think about this trip as their life's passion. Yet on the very first panel discussion, the moderator asked the question, "Who's the customer?", and the panelist glibly said "Humanity" and got away with this red-sky non-answer without even being challenged.

Sorry, I don't buy it. A customer puts money down to buy a product. Humanity is not the customer. Particularly when a Mars mission is going to cost anywhere from hundreds of billions of dollars for a single mission (or a few) to several trillions over time if we plan to go there and keep going.

Maybe the customer is the U.S. government, or Elon Musk, or a buyer to be named later, but somebody has to write a check. Actually, a lot of checks. Big ones.

More accurately then, humanity will be the beneficiary. Even Stephen Hawking says we have to establish a presence off-planet to guarantee humankind's survival, given our aggressive behavior and terrible weapons of mass destruction. And, even if you don't think we'll nuke ourselves to extinction, we may be using up our planet's resources and good weather fast enough to trigger Armageddon. Did I mention the possibility of killer asteroids like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs?

So that makes Mars an insurance policy to a lot of people. Not that they will live there, or even their children, but at least some humans down the line will, enough to carry the flag (and our DNA) into the future. This bleak scenario, by itself, probably won't win the day as an argument. Here are the others for going that have traction today:

• Exploration because that's what humans do —
• Science, both applied and otherwise —
• Innovation and Spin-offs for products not yet dreamed of —
• Appreciation for the Earth as the best true home for us —
• United States leadership of a true global partnership —

Not everyone agrees with all of these reasons but a lot of people agree strongly with one or more. What, then, is the actual path to human footsteps on Mars?

A True "Coalition of the Willing"

Remember this phrase? It was widely discredited when President George W. Bush used it to describe the minimal international support for his 2003 Iraq invasion but, the truth is, it goes back to the 1990s and it may even have been President Clinton who first used it over Bosnia.

I don't care if we pull the phrase out of mothballs or not, but it does describe what seems to be the only way to justify going to Mars to stay. All of these people who want to go need to pull together. Here's a quote for that idea:

"All of us together are smarter than any one of us, usually, but for sure all of us together are richer than any one of us."

One thing you should keep in mind is that John Kennedy, had he lived, knew well that the cost of the Apollo program was a terrible burden. He had begun talking to people within his Administration about converting his call to action into a joint exploration with the Soviet Union that would, presumably, share the costs.

Going to Mars with the intent to stay dwarfs the Apollo program. It can't be a race. We all have to get on the same team because the current flat NASA budget won't cut it. We have to spend more for an extended period of time and we have to convince others to put in their own money.

Here's what it will take to go to Mars the right way. We have to blend together the aspirations of the people, the business community and the government in a way that they have never quite blended before:

• Citizens need to make this a shared vision through activism and lobbying.
• Entrepreneurs should continue their practical work and plans in collaboration with NASA and other nation's space agencies.
• The United States should state the vision, clearly and unambiguously, providing the leadership to bring these elements together into a common goal.
• Entrepreneurs must eventually fold their own agendas into the larger agenda, and invest substantial capital in return for incentivized benefits.
• Other willing governments need to be made full partners. The logical possibilities are the European Union, Russia, China and India.
• A plan to send early human missions needs to be a part of a larger plan to establish a continuing self-sufficient Martian colony.

The 1960s are over. The United States government can't go this alone. We all watched the United States go to the Moon, but it was an American show all the way.

Going to Mars is different. While a flashy entrepreneur might just get a few humans there once, if we're going to stay, then we're all going together.

Tell somebody today that it's time for Mars. Tell them why. Repeat.

• Bryce Zabel is a working writer/producer who has been a CNN correspondent and was elected to serve as chairman/CEO of the Television Academy that awards the Emmy. In Hollywood, he has distinguished himself with science fiction projects, creating NBC's cult-hit Dark Skies, writing and producing Syfy's first original film, Official Denial, working with Steven Spielberg on Taken, and developing the Fox series M.A.N.T.I.S. and the syndicated series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. He is the author of two books, the 2014 Sidewise Award winning Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?and A.D. After Disclosure. Follow him on Twitter @BryceZabel and @hollywoodUFOs. His current TV pilot, Ares, written with Dark Skies co-creator Brent Friedman, is set on Mars in the very near future.

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Images Courtesy NASA, Kimmo Isokoski