Should the U.S. Prioritize Settling Mars?

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

NASA, SpaceX, and other private companies are working on plans to make Mars humanity’s next frontier. However, should settling Mars be one of America’s priorities? Those arguing “yes” say the U.S. should do it first before China does, and it would lead to new advances in science and technology. But those against doing so say there are big issues that would make colonization difficult for humanity. Now we debate: Should the U.S. Prioritize Settling Mars? Arguing Yes: Eric Berger, Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica Arguing No: Shannon Stirone, Freelance Science Writer Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.7	This is open to debate. I'm John Donvan. Hi, everybody. Putting people on Mars is, of course, a long-standing
0:35.6	dream or pipe dream, depending on your viewpoint.
0:38.9	NASA, America's space agency, has seemed committed in some way to making that happen,
0:43.3	but not with the same energy and focus that put men on the moon in 1969, only eight years after NASA set out to do that.
0:50.1	Not that the agency is not interested in Mars.
0:52.2	There are two Mars rovers up there right now that NASA sent exploring the planet.
0:56.6	NASA orbiters are circling.
0:58.3	But those are robots.
0:59.3	They are not people.
1:00.6	And NASA's more immediate effort involving people has been getting back to the moon.
1:05.7	At the same time, other players are joining the game who do seem in more of a hurry to put people on the Martian surface.
1:11.8	There's China, of course, and India, Elon Musk's Space X, and of course we know how much he's
1:16.7	got the ear of the president, whose recent declaration to Congress suggests that he, too,
1:21.4	wants to hurry things up for America.
1:23.2	We're going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and
1:30.5	even far beyond. So should we? Should we be organizing our efforts and energies around putting
1:38.7	women and men on Mars? Or is there a case to do the exact opposite, which would be to walk away from the whole idea of humans on the red planet?
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