In January of 2004 President Bush announced plans to return US space exploration to the Moon by 2020, using it as a based for eventual colonization of Mars. This seemed like good fodder for satirizing the Bush foreign policy of invading a place, seizing its assets (like, say, oil) and giving it to cronies of the administration (like, say, Halliburton or Enron.)
Americans in general favor space exploration and view Mars as an inevitable theater for colonization. Among policymakers and lobbyists in the technology and energy sectors, the race to Mars is part of our country’s competition with China.
“The US has been slow to catch on, to be frank, because it misunderstands some of the fundamentals of the new race,” says Peter Garretson, a retired US Air Force officer who is now a senior fellow focused on space strategy at the conservative-leaning American Foreign Policy Council. “For newly arrived space powers, repeating old tricks and doing new first-of-a-kind tricks still commands attention. But what really matters is who is establishing a long-term industrial and logistical base from which they can command long-term economic power.”
“What Mars exploration means for international politics back on earth”, Quartz
So it is no wonder that NASA efforts to explore and land on Mars receives bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. If only NASA’s efforts to study global warming enjoyed the same. (It doesn’t.)
