The agency paid for a digital billboard to go live on Earth Day across from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA, with the caption: "Mars Sucks." (A representative for Mars declined to comment.)
"We wanted to make a statement that would catch the world's attention, with the sole purpose of encouraging people to see the importance of prioritizing Earth," wrote Paco Conde and Beto Fernandez, founders of the agency Activista, in a joint email to dot.LA. "With SpaceX and Elon Musk representing Mars, the digital billboard outside SpaceX's HQ gave us a unique opportunity to make our statement that Mars can wait, but Earth can't – all in good humour, with a wink and a smile."
SpaceX is aiming to ferry tourists to Mars as soon as 2024.While seen as the most likely other planet in our solar system to host intelligent life, the Red Planet leaves a lot to be desired – with no breathable air, temperatures averaging a chilly -8 F and going as low as -220F, and punishing dust storms lasting months on end.
"Mars Sucks" billboard design and quote cards. See many more at their website below.
Conde and Fernandez say they are baffled as to why billionaires such as Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are so intent on going to Mars.
"We see some of the smartest and richest people on this planet dreaming of Mars," they wrote. "A hellhole that sucks. Really? Imagine if we had these same brilliant minds putting their genius into the climate crisis we're facing right now."
While the billboard will only be on display for 24 hours – until 6am PST Friday – a website and social media campaign will live on with the anti-Mars message. Visitors to the website are encouraged to donate to environmental groups.
Elon Musk has not responded to the billboard but plenty of others worldwide, including Russia's state news agency, have taken note on social media.
'Mars sucks' billboard springs up near SpaceX HQ to troll Elon Musk, media says @SpaceX @elonmusk https://t.co/XsUiF0e3LO— Sputnik (@Sputnik)1619119860.0
Earth Day shade in front of Space X headquarters. https://t.co/I7NMFeBrtw https://t.co/Fzf2zNqNh4— Bill Weir (@Bill Weir)1619102696.0
Une agence trolle Elon Musk avec sa campagne “Mars sucks” #journeemondialedelaterre https://t.co/AdEde0MfiR— la Réclame (@la Réclame)1619118540.0
🌍🌎🌏 Happy Earth Day 🌍🌎🌏— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk)1619125064.0
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The entire endeavor costs about $80 million, a high price tag for a potentially historic first mission.
NASA plans to launch its Mars chopper around April 8, and its test flight duration is limited to roughly a month. The helicopter was carried to Mars packed tightly onto the bottom of the Perseverance rover, which is about the size of a small car.
The expensive experiment is a risky gamble, especially because NASA's crafts are solar-powered.
Farah Alibay, an engineer at JPL working on the Perseverance rover mission and Ingenuity missions, said that time is a critical factor in the mission. The Ingenuity helicopter can't sustain itself after more than a day of darkness, so the team has roughly one Mars day to get it off the ground before its battery dies.
"The helicopter needs photons, it needs sun on its solar panels to charge its batteries and it can only survive one Martian night without that," Alibay said. "That's going to be a very stressful period but what I look forward to the most is after we do that drive is we'll get the first shot of Ingenuity on the surface of Mars, on her own, and I cannot wait to get that first picture."
Photo courtesy of Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
This test flight with the Ingenuity helicopter would mark the first time a flying craft has landed and taken off on the Red Planet, although NASA has sent four different wheeled robots or rovers to the planet since it first landed the Sojourner in 1997.
"It will have 31 Earth days to attempt to be the first helicopter to fly on another planet," NASA Planetary Science Division Director Lori Glaze said during a briefing Tuesday. "Sojourner redefined what we thought was possible on the surface of Mars, and completely transformed our approach to how we explore there."
If the mission is successful, it could mean that NASA would look to work with private contractors to develop more craft like the Ingenuity. A JPL spokesperson didn't immediately return dot.LA's request for comment regarding which local companies it might look to work with on future Mars helicopter projects.
Elon Musk has been vocal about his desire to live on and colonize Mars, so perhaps SpaceX might look to advance the technology. NASA implied during the briefing we may one day see privatized short-distance air travel in space, as well as Earth.
"As far as identifying a specific opportunity in the near future, what we like to do within NASA is provide competitive opportunities for our community and so we do offer those on a periodic basis and would hope that the community would see this as a great opportunity to start thinking about aerial platforms as a potential way to really expand our Mars exploration," Glaze said.
The helicopter will also carry a small piece of aerospace history with it as it zooms around Mars – a piece of fabric from the Wright Brothers' first successful test airplane, which took off from Kitty Hawk, N.C. in 1903.
"We are very proud to honor that experimental aircraft from long ago by carrying a small piece of fabric," said J. Bob Balaram, ingenuity chief engineer at JPL. This, he said, is another "Wright brothers moment" in history.
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