It is the 30th of May, 2020. It’s been a long time since the first human being was sent to space (during the Space Race era), a long time since the first commerical satellites were launched into orbit, and it’s also been fairly long since we first sent a rover to Mars. Granted, there have been several failed missions in this category but a rover did manage to land and move around successfully in 1997. So yes, it’s been 23 long years since we first tasted success in this regard!

However, we’ve still a long way to go when it comes to sending manned missions to Mars. There have been several proposals but none of them have come to fruition. We’ve managed to land people on the moon, bringing about one giant leap for humankind through that one step (let’s disregard the conspiracy theories surrounding the mission) but not sent anyone far enough to Mars - it’s elusive as ever.

Mars has been the subject of endless fantasies in terms of us wanting to set foot on it, or even colonize it! I recently read Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man and I was quite amazed by the amount of Mars fascination Bradbury expresses through various chapters (including interesting ideas like sending missionaries to spread religious ideals among alien species there!) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy also has its bits on the planet, and more recently The Martian became quite popular after the 2015 eponymous movie based on the book. And these are just a few examples among several mentions here and there.

Elon Musk has quite some plans for landing on Mars and based on the trajectories of his ideas so far, it might just work out. Fingers crossed!

Maybe Alice Cooper did manage to find his audience.