Red Dust and Rich Delusions: The Great Mars Grift

 

If you listen closely—over the hum of your rent going up, over the dull whimper of a collapsing healthcare system, over the congressional white noise of people who couldn’t Google their way out of a paper bag—you can hear it: the high-pitched whine of a billionaire’s rocket dick measuring contest launching straight into the void. That’s right. We’re going to Mars. Or so they tell us.

Not “we” as in you, or me, or anyone with a 401(k) smaller than a phone number. No, they are going. Elon, Jeff, and Sir Richard of the Discount Spacesuit. The plutocrat trifecta has declared that Mars is the next frontier—because when you’ve exploited all the labor and resources on Earth, the next logical step is to cosplay as Luke Skywalker with your own private space agency and a direct IV drip of federal subsidies.

Let’s be clear: there will be no human colony on Mars in any foreseeable future. Not in ten years. Not in fifty. Maybe not ever. This is not pessimism. This is physics, biology, logistics, and a little thing we used to call “reality.”

Mars Is Not Your Friend

Start with the basics: Mars is a dead, frozen rock bathed in lethal radiation, with a bone-dry atmosphere that’s 95% carbon dioxide and less than 1% of Earth’s pressure. Breathe in and you’ll die. Step outside and you’ll die. Stay inside and—when something inevitably breaks or depressurizes or runs out—you’ll die. The average temperature? -80 degrees Fahrenheit. You are not going to start a new civilization there. You’re going to freeze your balls off and asphyxiate in an expensive coffin built by the lowest bidder.

And let’s talk radiation. Earth has this thing called a magnetosphere that protects us from solar and cosmic radiation. Mars doesn’t. You want to live underground in a lead-lined mole colony? For the rest of your life? Hope you like dying of cancer in a lava tube, because that’s your retirement plan.

Even if you solve the radiation and atmospheric problems (you won’t), you still have to eat. Nothing grows there. Not without massive, continuous infrastructure powered by… what? Solar panels that can’t get enough sunlight during dust storms that last months? A nuclear reactor? Good luck launching a dozen of those without someone screaming “Chernobyl in the Sky.”

The Great Grift

So why all the noise? Simple: money. The “space race” of today isn’t a Cold War moonshot, it’s a PR-fueled, government contract hoarding, tech-bro fleecing scheme. Elon Musk's SpaceX, for example, lives and breathes on NASA and Department of Defense cash. Same for Blue Origin and its constellation of “research” arms. The dream of Mars is not for humanity—it’s for defense contracts, tax breaks, and lifetime speaking gigs on the future-of-humanity conference circuit.

Every “announcement” about Mars is a PowerPoint pitch to appropriations committees and stockholders. Every “milestone” is another step toward making you believe that paying taxes to fund billionaire fantasies is patriotic. They're not building rockets to explore the universe. They're building brands.

Meanwhile, on Earth, your drinking water is flammable, your rent is criminal, and your public school teacher is GoFundMe’ing pencils. But please—tell me again how important it is to terraform a rock 140 million miles away.

American Exceptionalism in a Vacuum

Only in the late-stage fever dream of American capitalism could the utter inhabitability of a planet be seen not as a barrier, but as a branding opportunity. Only in America do we watch society collapse around us and say, “Well, maybe I’ll just go to another planet.” You know, like a coward with unlimited miles.

We’re told this is the new frontier. But if manifest destiny taught us anything, it’s that billionaires ruin every place they “settle.” There are no native Martians to displace this time—unless you count the automated probes we’re about to trample over with corporate logos—but make no mistake: the same imperial hubris is strapped to every rocket.

The Final Truth

The myth of Mars is a distraction. A carrot on a stick made of unobtainium, designed to pull our gaze skyward while the ground beneath our feet erodes into dust. It is not a plan. It is a fantasy. And worse, it’s a lie that eats public money and vomits propaganda about “innovation” and “human destiny.”

Colonizing Mars is not noble. It is not visionary. It is not going to happen. It is the techno-dystopian equivalent of building a second yacht on a sinking cruise ship.

So next time Elon tweets about Mars, or Bezos mentions lunar logistics, or Branson straps himself into a midlife crisis, remember: these are not astronauts. They are hucksters, selling postcards from a planet you will never set foot on—paid for by your taxes, your attention, and your belief in the impossible.

And they’ll keep doing it… until we stop buying the ticket to nowhere.