Coming soon from Tech Tonic: Mission to Mars
Behind the Money
Topher Forhecz
4.4 • 350 Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US President Donald Trump has pledged to “plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars”, China could send its first crewed mission to Mars within a decade, and Elon Musk wants people to actually settle on Mars, transforming the human race into an interplanetary species.
In a new series of Tech Tonic, the FT’s Peggy Hollinger asks if we’re really about to land, and even live, on the red planet.
Free to read:
Three days with America’s rocket chasers
Tech Tonic is produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. The senior producer is Edwin Lane. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Five, four, three, two, one. |
| 0:05.0 | Is the human race really on its way to the red planet? |
| 0:12.0 | Oh, buddy! |
| 0:13.0 | Woo! |
| 0:14.0 | Oh my God! |
| 0:18.0 | Three plus 20 seconds. |
| 0:25.2 | For decades, setting foot on Mars has been a staple of science fiction. |
| 0:32.6 | But today, the U.S., China, and Elon Musk have set their sights on making that dream a reality. We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and |
| 0:39.6 | stripes on the planet Mars. I'm Peggy Hollinger. I report on the space industry for the financial |
| 0:46.1 | times. And in a new series of Tectonic, I'll be asking if sending humans to Mars is worth the time, |
| 0:53.6 | energy, and money. |
| 0:55.0 | I think laying the groundwork for eventual long-term human settlement on Mars |
| 0:59.0 | is absolutely one of the most important goals that we can do as a species. |
| 1:02.0 | Why Mars? Can we really get there? Even live there? |
| 1:06.0 | Each launch is about learning more about what's needed to make life multifanitary |
| 1:11.7 | and taking ultimately hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, to Mars. |
| 1:16.7 | And if we do get there, will anyone actually want to go? |
| 1:21.6 | Mission to Mars launches on Wednesday, October 7th. |
| 1:25.3 | Find Tectonic from the Financial Times, wherever you get your podcasts. |
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