Well, NASA has conducted surface operations on mars 5 times without any involvement from Musk, the CNSA has gone once....
replyWhat has Musk actually done to get us closer other than talk about how humanity ought to do it?
Musk built the first rocket capable of transporting a base, and humans, to Mars. NASA has nothing close to Starship, and if they ever did, it would come at a trillion-dollar cost to the American taxpayer.
replyNASA is currently the only organization to ever take humans beyond LEO.
replyStarship has only even achieved LEO once, in an unmanned mission a few weeks ago. Starship has so far cost about $15 Billion, the entire Saturn V launch program (excluding Apollo, to keep things apples-apples here) cost about $35 Billion in today's dollars.