--- title: Mars: President Obama's Pledge Will Be Hard to Realize description: President Obama promised a public-private partnership to get astronauts on the Red Planet at last. canonical: https://time.com/4526470/mars-president-barack-obama/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-11T16:20:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-07T06:50:22.160Z article:section: Ideas og:title: President Obama Says We're Going to Mars. If Only It Were That Easy og:description: Let's see if the U.S. is up to the challenge og:url: https://time.com/4526470/mars-president-barack-obama/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4ec1f47494d242b5/6988a98f656a3fe0ffbcd6a5/mars.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4180 og:image:height: 2351 og:image:alt: Mars: Wanna go there? Then quit talking about it and go. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Obama Says We're Going to Mars. If Only It Were That Easy twitter:description: Let's see if the U.S. is up to the challenge twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4ec1f47494d242b5/6988a98f656a3fe0ffbcd6a5/mars.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Obama Says We're Going to Mars. If Only It Were That Easy > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=62c1a307-26cc-4ff2-a05d-72ab593ca1da&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: To Mars And Back In 150 Seconds [Watch (HLS stream): To Mars And Back In 150 Seconds](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Ajwdfcr5.m3u8) (2:42)  _Published 2016-09-14. TIME's Jeffrey Kluger takes you inside the probable trip to Mars and back._  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 11, 2016 4:20 PM UTC  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 11, 2016 4:20 PM UTC As far as historians know, John Quincy Adams never promised to [get Americans to Mars](http://time.com/4492792/mars-mission-space/). That hardly made him uncommon among U.S. Presidents—at least the first 32 of them. But all that changed with President Eisenhower, who pushed for the creation of NASA and got the country’s great space bender going. Ever since then, Mars has been squarely in America’s sights, with most Presidents calling it out explicitly as a sort of 21st (and before that 20th) century extension of Manifest Destiny. On Tuesday, President Obama full-throatedly joined that chorus. In [an opinion piece](http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/opinions/america-will-take-giant-leap-to-mars-barack-obama/index.html) he penned on CNN.com, the President promised a public-private partnership to get astronauts on the Red Planet at last. “We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America’s story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time,” Obama wrote. That’s undeniably stirring stuff—provided there’s anything to it. Which there may well be. Or not. Start with the public-private part. It’s true that, as the President says, “Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators. … Within the next two years, private companies will for the first time send astronauts to the International Space Station.” But private companies have always been the space program’s manufacturing backbone. NASA didn’t build the Apollo spacecraft, North American Aviation did. It didn’t build the lunar module either, that was Grumman Aerospace. McDonnell Aircraft built the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, Boeing was the principle contractor for the space station, and on and on. What was different then was that those contracts were essentially work made to order—like planning precisely the house you want and hiring an architect to build it for you. Now it’s more like buying into a development: private companies like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences do the research and development and building on their own and then compete to sell their products to NASA. That does cut costs dramatically, though even here there’s a little sleight of hand. A portion of the multi-billion dollar contract NASA signed with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences for their unmanned cargo runs to the space station included money for research and development, blurring the public-private divide considerably. Then there’s the deadline: “by the 2030s.” Across industry and government, 15 years away is often the go-to target for any ambitious program that may or may not happen. It’s close enough that it suggests a certain accountability but far enough away that it gives you a lot of time to get the job done. And if you don’t, people might just have forgotten about it by then. Notice, too, the built-in buffer of an additional decade. “The 2030s” can mean January 1, 2030 or December 31, 2039—or any date in between. NASA has already begun quietly hedging on even that generous goal. Astronauts may only orbit Mars in the 2030s, go the current whispers; it could take until the 2040s before they actually land. Contrast this with President John F. Kennedy’s lunar challenge: The U.S. would have boots on the moon “before the end of this decade.” That was a marker he threw down in 1961 when the U.S. had a total of 17 minutes of manned space flight experience. But there was no mistaking what he meant: get there before midnight on December 31, 1969 or we fail. We didn’t fail. Nobody has ever mistaken Obama for much of a space cowboy. His support for the space program was only lukewarm during his first presidential run, until he wised up and realized that Florida, the ultimate space state, is also the ultimate swing state. Industries in swing districts across the country also rely on a robust space program. Even then, the Administration’s signature initiative for human exploration has been the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which involves ignoring Mars, ignoring the moon and instead sending an unmanned spacecraft out to tow a small asteroid to the lunar vicinity. Astronauts could then go visit it. Why? Because… um… we’ll get back to you on that. ARM is now dying a death by indifference and almost no one expects it to survive in the next Administration. That does clear the decks for Mars, which is an unalloyed good. But it’s not all Obama’s call to get the nation there and it won’t be the next President’s call either. It will be up to the whole brawling, partisan, dysfunctional lot in Washington to see the idea through. The moon program spanned four Presidential Administrations—two Democratic and two Republican—and seven Congresses. They argued about funding and deadlines and they soldiered through the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts in a launchpad fire and the near-death of the Apollo 13 astronauts on the way to the moon. And yet the rockets kept flying, the lunar modules kept landing and the job got done. You want to go to Mars? Fine, then _decide_ to go to Mars. It’s really as simple as that. Now let’s see if the nation is up to the challenge. ## Transcript A trip to Mars is way harder than a trip to the Moon it's just so far away. Imagine earth as a penny at the goal line of a football field. The moon would be a yard away Mars would be in the opposite end zone The shortest and cheapest route from Earth to Mars appears every 26 months when the planets align. The mission's work course will be NASA space launch system which basically means the rocket. The astronaut are on the launch pad ready to go. Wait sorry astronauts, first the few rockets must launch the cargo Go ahead of the crew. A single launch can put 130 tons of cargo into space. The astronauts board the Orion Capsule that sits on top of their own booster and set off on their historic two year mission. [ SOUND ] The astronaut's portion of the vehicle parts briefly in Earth's orbit and a powerful upper stage engine blasts them on their way. [ SOUND ] When the astronauts get as far away as the moon, they pick up a larger module that will give them more room to live on their journey. Earth's orbital speed and the rocket engines propel the astronauts. [ SOUND ] Prolong zero gravity causes weakening of the bones, muscles and heart. A; though exercise helps. Radiation shield in as critical to survival. It takes the crew about seven months to catch Mars. [ SOUND ] When the astronauts arrive at the Red Planet, they dock with the descent vehicle that was previously left in orbit for them. A thin atmosphere and gravity just one third that of Earth makes for a relatively easy entry and landing. Humanities first on another planet. A fully stocked Mars habitat that was delivered by unmanned rockets awaits them [ SOUND ] The crew will rely on space suits and the habitat to shield them from radiation and bitter cold that averages 67 degrees below zero. [ SOUND ] The crew must leave in 30 days to take advantage of the favorable Mars Earth alignment. The ascent vehicle docks with Orion and the large module and head back home, picking up speed thanks to a gravity assist from Venus. [ SOUND ] They splash down on earth in the Orion 22 months after they first blasted off, officially making human beings an interplanetary species. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4526470/mars-president-barack-obama/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4526470/mars-president-barack-obama/"},"headline":"President Obama Says We're Going to Mars. 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