For decades, Mars has been the grand canvas of space exploration: humanity’s next step, a second planet, an insurance policy against the failure of Earth. In the visions promoted by NASA, SpaceX, and private space enthusiasts, the Red Planet often appears as a future outpost of civilization — a dusty, dangerous, but supposedly attainable new home. But the closer one looks, the clearer it becomes: between the romantic idea of Mars and a real Mars colony lies not a small technical leap, but an abyss of cost, logistics, radiation, energy, industry, medicine, psychology, fuel production, and political willpower. A crewed Mars landing would already be one of the riskiest undertakings in human history. But a real Mars colony would be something else entirely: not merely a research mission, but an attempt to make humans live permanently on a planet that is lethal to them. And this is precisely where the uncomfortable truth begins: a Mars colony would most likely not be a new home for its first inhabitants, but a final destination.

Mars is often described as “Earth-like” because it has day-night cycles, seasons, polar caps, and a solid surface. But these similarities are superficial. For humans, Mars is a deadly environment. It has only a very thin atmosphere, no global magnetic shield like Earth’s, extreme cold, high radiation levels, dust storms, hardly any usable natural resources in a form ready for immediate processing, and no biosphere capable of sustaining humans for even a single minute. Every breath, every liter of water, every kilowatt of energy, every calorie of food, and every spare part would have to be produced, protected, recycled, or delivered from Earth.

NASA itself does not treat Mars as an easily accessible settlement area, but as the endpoint of an extremely complex “Moon to Mars” architecture. This architecture is updated technically on a regular basis and includes transportation, communication, surface infrastructure, return strategies, energy supply, habitats, life support, and so-called in-situ resource utilization — the use of local resources to produce water, oxygen, fuel, or building materials. That sounds like progress. In reality, it shows one thing above all: we are not talking about colonization, but about a gigantic survival apparatus.

The honest answer to the question “What would a Mars colony cost?” is: no one knows for sure. There are rough estimates, visions, cost models, and political budget lines. But a reliable overall calculation for a permanently habitable Mars colony does not exist. Even significantly smaller Mars projects show how quickly costs can spiral. NASA’s Mars Sample Return program, which was intended merely to bring a few samples collected by Perseverance back to Earth, was estimated by independent auditors to have potential costs of $8 to $11 billion, prompting NASA to seek simpler and more cost-effective concepts. This is crucial: if even the return transport of a few hundred grams of Martian rock is so technically and financially challenging, then a human Mars base — with life support, energy supply, shelters, landers, spare parts, medical infrastructure, and return capabilities — must be imagined on an entirely different cost scale.

The Artemis program also demonstrates just how expensive even a return to the Moon already is. The NASA Inspector General estimated the total cost of Artemis for the period from fiscal year 2012 to 2025 at approximately $93 billion. Compared to Mars, the Moon is almost “close”: only about three days’ flight time away, with relatively short communication delays and at least theoretically conceivable emergency logistics.

Mars, on the other hand, is millions of kilometers away, depending on the position of the planets. Launch windows open only about every 26 months. A rescue mission is not possible on short notice. A return is only realistic if fuel, launch systems, power, and life support function — on a planet where there is no repair shop, no port, no industry, and no second chance.

SpaceX is the most prominent private player in the Mars debate. On its Mars page, the company explicitly describes the goal of building a self-sustaining city on Mars. According to SpaceX, this would require transporting more than a million people and millions of tons of cargo to the Red Planet. This figure is impressive — but it also reveals the sheer scale of the task. One million people and millions of tons of cargo do not mean a few rocket launches, but a permanently functioning interplanetary transport system. Such a system would require not only large rockets, but also fuel production, launch facilities, maintenance systems, landing sites, spare-parts supply chains, energy infrastructure, production facilities, radiation protection, food production, and medical care.

SpaceX itself has quoted a price of $100 million per ton to the Martian surface for future Mars cargo flights. Even if such figures were to decrease in the long term, this scale alone makes one thing clear: a Mars colony would not be a normal infrastructure project, but a financial black hole of planetary proportions. And the fundamental problem remains: for lunar and Martian architectures, Starship must not only launch and land, but also be refueled in orbit, safely transport large payloads, reliably land on other celestial bodies, and operate in a reusable manner. Some of these capabilities have not yet been proven across the full mission chain. For the Moon in particular, NASA has adjusted its Artemis planning multiple times because lander systems, spacesuits, docking procedures, and demonstration missions are more complex than originally communicated to the public.

China is now a serious player in space exploration. With Tianwen-1, the country successfully sent an orbiter, lander, and rover to Mars. For Tianwen-3, China is planning a Mars sample return mission, with a launch around 2028 and the return of samples around 2031. There are also Chinese long-term plans and statements regarding crewed Mars missions from the 2030s onward. At the same time, reputable analyses distinguish between a crewed Mars mission, a Mars orbit mission, a landing, and a permanent colony.

China will therefore likely continue to explore Mars scientifically and strategically. But China, too, faces the same physical challenges: distance, launch windows, fuel, radiation, life support, landing large masses, and return capability. A Chinese Mars colony is therefore not on the horizon, even though China may be able to plan more consistently in the long term than Western democracies with fluctuating budgets.

Russia has a long history of spaceflight. Soyuz technology is robust, proven, and served for many years as a reliable backbone of crewed spaceflight to the International Space Station. But robustness is not the same as interplanetary sustainability. The Russian space program has suffered for years from budget pressures, industrial losses, the consequences of sanctions, geopolitical isolation, and a technological lag behind the United States and, increasingly, China. Previous Russian space programs have already been scaled back due to budget cuts. Following the break with Europe in the wake of the war in Ukraine, Russia also lost key partnerships, including those related to ExoMars. The ESA had to restructure the project and continue it with NASA support for a planned 2028 launch.

Russia can still conduct spaceflight. But an independent Mars colonization effort is not realistic under current financial, technical, and political conditions. Statements about potential contributions — such as nuclear power supply — are interesting, but they do not replace a complete Mars architecture.

A Mars colony is often portrayed as if humans could land there, establish a base, and later return with newly produced fuel. This is precisely where the critical issue begins. To return from Mars, a functional ascent capability is required. This includes a Mars Ascent Vehicle, fuel, energy, cryogenic storage, launch preparation, maintenance, navigation, rendezvous in Mars orbit, and a return flight to Earth. All of this would have to be either brought from Earth or produced on Mars. NASA documents on Mars ascent propellants emphasize that producing fuel from local resources could significantly reduce the landing mass — potentially one of the most important levers for a Mars mission. But “could” is the key word here. Industrial-scale fuel production on Mars at a mission-critical level has not yet been proven in practice.

On the ISS, it is possible to respond relatively quickly in an emergency. On the Moon, a rescue would be extremely difficult, but in principle conceivable within days if systems and launch readiness were in place. On Mars, it is different. The distance between Earth and Mars varies enormously. Launch windows are rare. Depending on planetary alignment, communication signals take anywhere from several minutes to more than twenty minutes each way. NASA itself points out that communication delays and outages are inevitable in crewed Mars missions, which means mission planning must be designed for a high degree of autonomy. In plain language, this means: if something goes wrong on Mars, no one can simply fly over and help. A rescue mission would have to be prepared, launched, travel for months, land successfully, and be self-sufficient. In an emergency, it would be too late. The first settlers would therefore not be colonists in the historical sense, but people trapped inside a closed technical life-support system with no realistic rescue option. This is closer to a suicide mission than to a desirable emigration project.

Technology is only part of the problem. People are not interchangeable payloads. A Mars colony would mean isolation, confinement, radiation exposure, reduced gravity, lack of nature, social conflict, dependence on machines, and constant proximity to death. Every surgery, every infection, every accident, every mental breakdown would become a problem without a normal hospital. Every pregnancy would be highly problematic, both medically and ethically. No one knows how long-term Martian gravity would affect the human body over generations. No one knows whether children could grow up healthy there. No one knows how a small, isolated society could remain stable when return is not a realistic option. A Mars colony would therefore not merely be an engineering project. It would be a biological, social, and moral experiment on human beings.

The exploration of Mars is scientifically valuable. Robots, orbiters, rovers, sample analyses, geology, climate history, and the search for traces of past life are legitimate research goals. A robotic Mars mission can yield knowledge without sending humans into a deadly environment. But a Mars colony is something else. It devours resources, attention, and political energy that are urgently needed on Earth: climate adaptation, energy infrastructure, education, health care, ecological stabilization, disaster preparedness, research, poverty alleviation, and the protection of Earth’s biosphere. The often-heard claim that Mars is a “backup Earth” is misleading. Even a severely damaged Earth remains infinitely more hospitable to humans than Mars. On Earth, there is atmospheric pressure, liquid water, a magnetic field, ecosystems, gravity, agriculture, infrastructure, and billions of people. Mars has none of these. Those who cannot keep Earth habitable will not make Mars habitable.

Mars fascinates because it sounds like an escape. Like a fresh start. Like a second chance. But perhaps that is precisely the most dangerous narrative. Mars solves no earthly problem. It does not solve climate change. It does not solve resource waste. It does not solve political violence, social inequality, species extinction, or energy crises. It merely exports these problems to an environment where every mistake becomes more deadly. A small, privileged group on Mars would not be humanity’s salvation. It would be an extremely expensive, fragile outpost of a civilization that could not protect its own home.

Mars deserves scientific exploration. It deserves robots, orbiters, drilling, sample analysis, and perhaps one day a brief crewed expedition. But permanent colonization is, as things stand today, not a realistic, desirable, or morally sound strategy for the future.

·       It would be incredibly expensive.

·       It would be technically immature.

·       It would be medically risky.

·       It would be psychologically brutal.

·       It would be logistically dependent on Earth.

YESTERDAY, TOMORROW WAS ALREADY DIFFERENT