Mars cant save you, says Kim Stanley Robinson

Few authors have shaped our collective imagination of Mars like Kim Stanley Robinson. His Mars Trilogy Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), and Blue Mars (1996) remains a towering achievement in science fiction, weaving science, politics, and environmental philosophy into an epic vision of what Mars colonisation could look like. But three decades later, with Mars once again capturing the public imagination not through literature, but through the ambitions of billionaires I asked Robinson a simple, pressing question: Do you really believe that humans will eventually go to Mars? Or is this whole conversation a distraction from the far more urgent task of saving Earth?His answer was clear: Mostly the latter. Given the situation on Earth, Mars is largely a distraction. Its a sobering stance from the author most associated with a detailed and optimistic vision of Mars. While he acknowledges that space exploration has profound value Space science is Earth science, he said, quoting a classic NASA line the idea of sending humans to Mars is another matter entirely. He draws a parallel with Antarctica: a barren, inhospitable place populated by rotating teams of scientists, largely ignored by the wider world. If we had small scientific teams on Mars, it would be similar, he said. Theyd stay a few years, cycle in and out. But it wouldnt be glamorous. It would be research. Quiet. Dangerous. Necessary, but not revolutionary. The idea of colonising Mars the Muskian vision of a multi-planetary species is, in Robinsons words, bad science fiction. He explains: We cant breathe the air. We cant touch the soil. The surface is laced with perchlorates salts deadly to humans. Youd have to live underground, in radiation-shielded bunkers. Like a Motel 6 in a prison. We do not know what long-term exposure to Mars, which has just 37% of Earths gravity, would do to human biology, fetal development, or mental health. When I asked Robinson whether he would, in hindsight, have rewritten the Mars Trilogy for our more climate-anxious era, he replied firmly: I wouldnt change a thing. But he did acknowledge that his recent work, The Ministry for the Future, is in some ways a rewriting of the Mars Trilogy only this time, the project isnt terraforming Mars, but healing Earth. The Mars books were about building a better society on another planet, he said. But Ministry is about doing that here, now, under pressure, in crisis. Even in Blue Mars, the message was never lets escape Earth: it was the opposite. The Martians return to a ravaged Earth and say: Mars cant save you. Were a mirror. If we can build a just society here, so can you. The trilogys deeper message What Robinson emphasises, and what many readers miss, is that the Mars Trilogy was always a thought experiment, not a blueprint. It was about how societies form, how values evolve, and how we might rise to the challenge of being planetary stewards, whether on Mars or on Earth. But it was also a product of its time the early 1990s. Since then, science has evolved. The dangers are clearer. The utopianism has faded. Yet the allure of the red planet persists, perhaps even more so today, as Earths crises mount. Robinsons insight cuts through our obsession with Mars and shows us it is not really about Mars: its about our inability to deal with Earth. In reflecting on his own body of work, Robinson also spoke about the power of novels: Theyre slow, solitary, imaginative. Half the work is done by the reader. Thats what makes them powerful, and why theyll never be universally loved but for those who love them, they become a crucial part of life itself, because they help to create lifes meaning. Both Mars Trilogy and The Ministry for the Future ask: What kind of future are we building? And more importantly: Where do we choose to build it on Mars, or here, together, on Earth?