January 21, 2025 - 10:00am
Of all the striking things about Donald Trump’s second inaugural address, one line stuck out. Wedged between a threat to take over the Panama Canal and a panegyric to American history, the new president told his audience that “we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
It’s unclear whether Trump intends to actually send American astronauts to Mars. One presumes it won’t happen within the next four years. The constituency for funding space travel to Mars is not a large one, and for that reason alone it may not happen within our lifetime.
Yet Trump delivered the line with a straight face. No one laughed. Pundits barely mocked him for making the claim. Indeed, most commentators did not say anything about it at all. Granted, Trump has an uneven record with truth and keeping promises; but the fact is that everyone could imagine America sending men to Mars.
Turning the question around, how many world leaders can you imagine saying something like this right now with a straight face, and without universal mockery? It is possible to envisage Xi Jinping, whose country has already built a space station and is planning a manned mission to the Moon by 2030, wanting to plant the Chinese flag on Mars before the Americans as a display of national vitality.
It is just about possible to picture Narendra Modi, whose country has a thriving space programme, promising something similar — though given India’s general level of development, it would be widely viewed as somewhat wasteful. Vladimir Putin could conceivably say it given his country’s record in human spaceflight, though few could imagine Russia, in its diminished form, pulling it off.
By contrast, it is utterly impossible to imagine Keir Starmer, or indeed any British leader, saying something like this without being met with overwhelming mockery and derision. That’s because no one can imagine Britain going to Mars, or to any other planet.
The United Kingdom has the dubious distinction of being the first and only country in history to have developed then given up on an indigenous satellite launch capability. Most writers date the end of the UK as a great power by referring either to Suez or decolonisation. Yet 1971, when the nation decided it was too poor to afford a piece of cutting-edge technology which is today held by the likes of Iran and North Korea, seems as good a date as any.
What about Europe? The European Space Agency can launch satellites on mostly French-made rockets. In the aggregate, European Union member states technically have the industrial capacity for launching crewed space missions. Yet the idea of European astronauts on Mars seems almost as ludicrous as that of a British Mars base.
The ESA does have astronauts; but they go into space by hitchhiking on American platforms. Either way, it is very difficult to conceive of a political union whose highest aspiration seems to be to remain a “regulatory superpower” taking mankind where it has never set foot before.
On the day of Trump’s inauguration, it was reported that UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves is preparing to publicly support the construction of a third runway at Heathrow, a project first proposed in 2003 which has been mired in politics and legal challenges since. In the context of British politics, this is what passes for genuine ambition. But a country that cannot build an additional runway for its largest international airport is not a country that will go to Mars or, frankly, anywhere else.
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SubscribeI always had ambivalent feelings about the USA – I was kind of impressed but didn’t really like the brashness or the overt patriotism.
These days, I’m completely inspired and galvanised by it. Maybe it’s because Europe, including Britain, just seems to have committed itself meekly to its own decline and downward trajectory, or is too lazy or incompetent or overregulated or unambitious to turn things around.
Whatever.
I need some kind of inspiration to keep pushing forward in work and business and look at the future and say “Yay! So many exciting things are going to happen and there will be so many opportunities, let’s go!”
That’s why I look at Musk and Kash Patel and – whatever their weaknesses and weirdnesses might be – I just love that crazy “can do, let’s do” attitude.
I am also fairly sure this is also why, when I saw the original star-spangled banner in the Museum of American History in October, I suddenly found myself having a proper blub right in front of it. Glad it was dark in there, I looked like a right wazzock.
Over the past few decades the British zeitgeist has so committed itself to hand-wringing, managed decline that an assertive attitude to nationhood seems terrifying to us.
I don’t understand the European commitment to decline.
The commitment to decline comes from having unelected people in charge of everyday life. With an elected government there is some degree of responsibility to the voters. With the great unelected, they learn history, develop a theme, pursue the theme get together to make a plan to squash all adversaries. That is why Starmer et al want to rejoin Europe.
It takes leadership. It’s that simple. The British used to have great patriotism and pride – it’s not gone, just buried. Ya need another Maggie Thatcher!
I think you need more than that; you need people who are uncomfortable and worried enough to follow the leader. MT followed a decade of strikes including the 3-day week and everybody was heartily sick of it. Today I see that the North is sick of It but London seems to want more and more…
Thatcher pushed along that decline as fast as anybody else
You forget to mention the supercharged steroids her policies put upon the decline
Now it terminal phase at terminal velocity
Hope you have enjoyed the long
Fall
Tis the fast approaching Thud upon the floor and the irreparable damage that sentences you to remain there
No Regrets maybe a appropiate
Anthem then
It’s not a commitment
It’s the consequences of
england, Spain, Portugal , France, Belgium,Holland , Austria, Hungary , Germany,Italy and Denmark no longer having
A empire to loot
In reality the British empire was a drag on our economy for several generations. But hey, why spoil a good story, eh?
MBGA!
Come on Brits. You can do it!
Your finest hour is yet to come.
I think if you showed Trump’s speech to someone from the 60s they would be surprised that we have not actually been to Mars yet. You can debate whether the reforms the Trump administration proposes will get us to Mars, especially if you compare it to the Cold War economy. However, it is certainly true that our ancestors first dreamed the impossible and then made it into a reality.
Indeed. When JFK made his speech about “going to the moon” it was met with wide-eyed optimism.
Mars is a different order of engineering and human capacities, but in relation to the tech at both that early 60s juncture and now, no so.
Money Money Money
It’s a Rich Man’s world
And America ain’t rich
In fact they crippled by a massive pile of Debt , Eye watering trade deficit , Inability to manufacture the basics of life , Ditto for military hardware that today always ends up way over budget , delivered way over program then requiring hideously expensive maintenance and upgrades
Slowly but surely and greatly assisted by America itself and it’s I’ll thought actions are merely accelerating the rise of BRI & BRICS
Which in turn shall diminish the power and Hegomon of the US $ and by default their ability to keep
All their vast foreign military bases fit for their purposes
The US has already had their Suez day and replicating UK Delusion of Power and Grandeur
History which shall blow away the fog of time as it always does
Will read
Suez day – Vietnam
Slide begins
Then accelerates with Iraq 2 , Afghanistan and now Ukraine
Financially and Militarily
America is now none other than ‘A Paper Tiger ‘
Boo Boo Boo and they shall run away just as. Iraq , Afghanistan and Ukraine clearly show that the run has commenced and the pace picking up
Fly me to Mars and just like Hollywood in the ending of the film Pretty Woman
DREAM ON
Unable to manufacture the basics of life? On what planet do you live, sir? Despite Biden’s restrictions, the USA produces massive amounts of energy. Contrary to some impressions, between 1990 and 2020, U.S. manufacturing output nearly doubled in inflation-adjusted terms and productivity has grown steadily.
It is certainly true that the US is doing much less well than it could due to excessive regulations, environmental lobbyists, and a culture that is more cautious and fearful than in the past. But the USA remains more dynamic than Europe and the economic gap has been growing since the turn of the century.
Demographically, while Europe and many parts of the world reach peak population and begin to shrink, the USA remains an outlier.
Just about all the big successful tech companies are in the USA.
The US (actually mostly SpaceX) is sending an enormous number of satellites into space, is building bigger rockets and dropping the cost of getting into space enormously, and most likely will indeed land humans on Mars within a decade.
Whilst a touch hyperbolic, there is an element of truth in the posters comment in that American exceptionalism is rather overstated.
Remove the dollars reserve currency status and America can’t run the huge deficits that it does, which removes large amounts of funding and subsidies for various projects. Remove its recent oil/gas boom and its recent rates of growth would be on par with that of Europe
That ‘recent’ oil and gas boom has been happening since at least the 1950’s. And we keep finding more as well.
Ah a village Idiot engaged
Three essentials of life
1 A roof upon your head , Homelessness in USA expodentially rising , Global warming that destroys over 1.6 million homes that are not resilient
2.Clothes upon your back , 96 % of such now imported
3. 84 % of all American food is now highly processed produce , and only the rich able to afford fresh unadulterated food The rest condemned to eat processed which then explains
Why they one of the sickest upon the planet and as far as manufacturing goes pathetic
Productivity
I was born and reside upon Planet Earth
From which Planet did you arrive from
However, many of us can imagine sending Keir Starmer into space. Then he would be Keir Starman of course.
I bloody well hope the UK never embarks on such a stupid and expensive venture.
We already have: HS2.
America is the most powerful country because it’s a continent sized nation, protected by two vast oceans, with vast natural resources that was well placed to profit from Europe tearing itself apart during the two world wars with the dollar acting as the de facto gold standard allowing them to run vast deficits.
This is why they are able to contemplate sending people to Mars, rather than them dreaming going to Mars being the reason they’re rich and powerful. It’s no different to when Europe was rich and powerful and sending explorers off to explore and colonise the globe. In my opinion the author has it the wrong way around on this occasion
Right on! Excellent, to space and beyond!
The third runway will never be built. Lack of imagination, initiative, and funds will take care of that – not to mention the usual hearings, reviews, regulations, and other bureaucratic obstacles.
China could crank out a new runway every week, but the UK will not build even one in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
Trump would get one done in six months.
Mars used to have vast, but shallow oceans.
“It’s unclear whether Trump intends to actually send American astronauts to Mars. One presumes it won’t happen within the next four years.”
No such presumption.
These are not the Biden years anymore.
There is a quantum difference between the speed of Biden and the speed of Trump/Musk.