Part 3/13:
He emphasizes that NASA currently lacks a rocket capable of reaching Mars, and even if Elon Musk's private company, SpaceX, has a rocket ready, the real challenge is whether taxpayers are willing to foot the bill for a mission projected to cost around a trillion dollars—an astronomical figure that rivals entire national budgets. Tyson stresses that current missions, such as rovers on Mars, are exploratory; they discover ancient potential life but do not lay the groundwork for sustained human settlement, which involves an entirely different and vastly more expensive set of logistical and economic considerations.