Why Mars is America’s next strategic imperative

Space is the defining strategic frontier of the 21st century. America’s space leadership depends on harnessing the private sector to create wealth and focusing the public sector on limited yet critical security and scientific objectives.

While achieving supremacy in cislunar space (the region between Earth and the moon, including the moon’s surface) must be our immediate aim, it lacks the strategic coherence to sustain American leadership over the long term.

America’s commercial space sector provides the capability and incentives to make Mars exploration both symbolically and economically rewarding.

We need long-term goals to define success and clarify tradeoffs. A manned mission to Mars can do both.

China and Russia, our near-peer competitors in space, pose serious challenges. Beijing openly pursues dominance in the Earth-moon system while accelerating toward Mars, with an ambitious sample return mission scheduled for 2028. Russia maintains formidable military capabilities in space, alongside proven Mars science achievements.

If our authoritarian rivals prevail, the world’s free nations may find their ability to access and use space significantly curtailed.

This is why the United States needs a unifying long-term vision that focuses and directs near-term commercial, military, and scientific objectives. We must also research and develop technologies for sustained living in space. A smart Mars strategy provides the needed framework, creating the technological roadmap and institutional durability to win the cislunar competition and position America for permanent space premiership.

Unleash the private sector

America’s commercial space revolution offers a compelling model for space exploration that our competitors cannot match. Most obviously, market forces have been essential for reducing launch costs. SpaceX has already demonstrated that private initiative can outpace government bureaucracies, slashing launch costs from $18,000 per kilogram during the Space Shuttle era to roughly $2,700 for today’s reusable Falcon 9.

A healthy ecosystem of suppliers, including Blue Origin, proves this success isn’t limited to one company. Cheaper launches mean increased launch cadence, which is necessary to keep space habitats provisioned. This is a prerequisite for conducting the research and tests for a journey to Mars.

China’s approach offers an instructive contrast. While Beijing tolerates private sector participation, it ultimately remains under state control. This creates strategic coherence but sacrifices the agility and inventiveness that drive transformative breakthroughs.

Chinese private space companies operate as tools of the state. Precisely because the Chinese Communist Party subordinates the information-generating and incentive-aligning features of markets, they will never enjoy the full benefits of space commerce.

Preparing for Mars missions will yield new technologies with dual-use applications. On-orbit refueling, advanced life support systems, radiation shielding, nuclear propulsion, and autonomous manufacturing capabilities developed for Mars will flow back into energy production, medical devices, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing here on Earth. It will also bolster military preparedness through advancements in basic and applied sciences. All this redounds to national security by increasing the resilience of our space assets.

These developments promise substantial job creation across skill and education levels. While Mars missions certainly demand high-tech expertise and advanced degrees, they also require skilled technicians, machinists, and assembly specialists. Going to Mars will help revitalize America’s industrial base while broadly distributing economic prosperity.

Winning the long game

While a single Mars mission could take 30 months or longer, a Mars program will likely span decades, requiring support from multiple Congresses and presidential administrations.

Avoiding the start-stop cycles that have plagued space programs — from Apollo to Constellation — requires building institutional and political durability at the outset. The foundation must be bipartisan, framing Mars leadership as a matter of national security and economic competitiveness.

Bold endeavors define our national character. Amid social and political fragmentation, undertaking something even greater than a moonshot is an opportunity for national solidarity.

Private-sector anchoring creates a robust foundation. Expanding milestone-based public-private partnerships ties American industry to Mars logistics and operations. When companies and workers nationwide have a stake in space exploration, political support becomes geographically broad and resilient across electoral cycles. Ultimately, mission success offers the best defense against annual appropriations turbulence.

The federal government’s role must remain limited and focused. Agencies should help finance foundational research and development through mission-oriented programs. Public-private agreements should be structured to maximize flexibility. Renting services rather than purchasing equipment ought to be the government’s default approach.

We must also maintain a predictable regulatory environment that protects property rights and resists bureaucratic mission creep. The government’s comparative advantage is setting long-term national objectives and coordinating industry on best practices. While public values channeled through the political process set our destination, private initiative and the profit motive serve as our most powerful engine.

Leveraging alliances

Integration with existing programs maximizes efficiency. The groundwork for future Mars missions should complement, not duplicate, the Space Force’s cislunar operations and NASA’s Artemis lunar architecture. On the international stage, the U.S. should leverage its alliances while ensuring American leadership in setting exploration norms through frameworks such as the Artemis Accords.

Building on our success with the Artemis Accords, we should actively pursue partnerships with the European Union and Japan. We should also deepen space ties with India, which may induce it to align with the free world instead of Russia and China. History has shown our allies will help shoulder the burdens of freedom if America has the courage to lead.

Strategic signaling to allies and competitors augments the framework. A stable, legislated Mars roadmap reassures international partners while deterring rivals, ensuring program continuity.

To the Red Planet!

Mars represents the next great test of American resolve. Bold endeavors define our national character. Amid social and political fragmentation, undertaking something even greater than a moonshot is an opportunity for national solidarity.

The strategic necessity is clear, the economic logic is compelling, and the technological pathway is feasible. What Mars demands now is the political will to harness America’s asymmetric advantages for humanity’s greatest adventure.

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Photo by Yang Guanyu/Xinhua via Getty Images

Getting to Mars requires the fortitude to sustain multiyear missions alongside the business discipline to achieve them cost-effectively. America’s commercial space sector provides the capability and incentives to make Mars exploration both symbolically and economically rewarding. Situating our cislunar activities within a Mars plan makes the payoffs even clearer. The moon and Mars are complements, not substitutes.

The choice before us is to either lead a free, rules-based expansion of human civilization beyond Earth or cede the final frontier to authoritarianism. If we fail, we relegate ourselves to the status of a nation in decline. We cannot accept red flags on the Red Planet.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally in the American Mind.