Opinion

So, why the sudden rush to visit Mars?

By Cassandra Steer
Updated July 31 2020 - 7:18am, first published 4:30am
A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a drilled sample site on the slopes of Mount Sharp, Mars. Picture: Getty Images
A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a drilled sample site on the slopes of Mount Sharp, Mars. Picture: Getty Images

Over the past two weeks, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have both successfully launched spacecraft to Mars, and by the time you are reading this, the United States is expected to have launched its latest rover robot to the red planet. The European Space Agency is working together with the Russian Roscosmos to launch another Mars mission in 2022. With the world still in the grips of a pandemic, and scientific efforts focused on resolving it with a vaccine, why this expensive, resource-heavy race to Mars between great and emerging powers? The answer is in the politics of space in the 21st century.

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