Crewed spaceflight reaches the surface of Mars before 2035.

Question

Six frontier AI models put this at 7% by 7 Oct 2036. Full reasoning from every model.

WillHappen.ai · Accepted Answer

7% — the median of 6 frontier models, resolving by 2036-10-07.

Answer

Gemini (Google): 8% — Unproven long-duration life support and orbital refilling make meeting the late-2033 or mid-2035 Mars transfer windows very unlikely. Artemis lunar landings must succeed repeatedly before NASA or SpaceX can commit humans to a 26-month interplanetary mission. Major crewed space programs slip by 5 to 10 years on average; uncrewed Mars cargo Starships have not yet landed safely. A fully uncrewed Starship landing and returning cargo during the 2031 window would double these odds.

Answer

Claude (Anthropic): 3% — No crewed vehicle, life-support, or landing system exists yet for Mars; 2035 is far too soon. Starship still hasn't proven orbital refueling, long-duration life support, or any deep-space crewed flight as of late 2025. Historical pattern shows Mars crewed missions perpetually slip decades (NASA's own roadmaps have no committed date before 2040s). Only a dramatic, unprecedented acceleration by SpaceX/NASA with flawless execution across dozens of untested systems could change this.

Answer

GPT (OpenAI): 9% — A crewed Mars mission hinges on Starship becoming a repeatedly reliable deep-space system by the 2031–33 launch windows. No nation has sent people beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, and Mars adds multi-year life-support and landing risks. NASA’s current Artemis schedule must first demonstrate lunar landing, long-duration operations, and high-power deep-space systems before Mars hardware is credible. A successful Starship propellant-transfer and cislunar campaign by 2029–30 would sharply raise the odds, but that schedule is unproven.

Answer

Grok (xAI): 18% — SpaceX Starship must be crewed-Mars-ready for the 2033 Hohmann window. Only a 2033 launch can arrive on the surface before 2035; later windows miss the cutoff. NASA has no independent heavy-lift architecture on this timeline, so SpaceX must fly uncrewed cargo landers plus closed-loop life support by ~2031. Apollo-to-Moon took eight years with simpler physics; Starship’s 2026 test cadence plus typical multi-year slips put a 2033 crewed landing well below historical success…

Answer

DeepSeek (DeepSeek): 4% — Starship must fly uncrewed to Mars first, and that hasn't happened yet. SpaceX's Starship is the only vehicle with plausible Mars capability, and its uncrewed cargo test flights aren't scheduled until 2026-2028, leaving too little margin. NASA's own Artemis/ Moon-to-Mars timelines assume lunar landings through 2028 before any crewed Mars attempt, and Congress hasn't funded a Mars transit vehicle. No precedent exists for crewed interplanetary flight, and the 2-year launch windows plus life-support, radiation, and return-vehicle gaps make a crewed landing by 2035…

Answer

Qwen (Alibaba): 6% — SpaceX must launch crewed by the 2033 window at latest, requiring near-flawless execution across every subsystem for seven straight years. No uncrewed Starship Mars landing has been attempted; life support and Mars EDL for crewed payloads remain undemonstrated as of late 2026. Musk's stated timelines have historically slipped 5–10×; the 2031 window is already too tight for a crewed attempt given remaining certification hurdles. A development that would raise this above 15%: a successful uncrewed Starship Mars landing in the 2029 window, which would validate EDL and in-situ resource utilization.

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