Here’s a quiz for you. 

Let’s imagine that you have a car that can fly. Let’s also imagine that the cab of your car is pressurized and has a good heater.

Now, imagine that you’ve decided that you’d like to hop in the car and fly to the International Space Station to drop off some cookies. How long would it take you to get there at standard freeway speed, assuming you time it right so that you can rendezvous with the ISS when it orbits overhead? The answer might surprise you. At freeway speed, say, 65 miles-per-hour, you’ll arrive at the ISS in about three-and-a-half hours. You don’t even have to pack a lunch.

Now: how about the Moon? That’s a different story. The Moon is roughly 239,000 miles away, which means that at freeway speed, well, let’s just say that you’re going to want to pack a lunch. In fact, at freeway speed, it’s going to take you five months to get there. Big lunch.

So now, let’s talk Mars. Mars is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth. At 65 miles per-hour, it’s a 2,991-month journey. That’s just shy of 250 years. You’re going to have to pack a lunch for your great-great-great-grandkids.

That’s why we don’t drive to Mars.

But humans are going to Mars, in a reasonable amount of time, and I’ve figured out how. I have a new book coming out soon, and it’s a great story. Stay tuned!