For more than half a century, Mars has remained exactly one generation away — a destination perpetually deferred not by the limits of physics, but by the fragile chains of political will and institutional funding. As of August 2026, NASA publishes no official crewed landing year because its Moon to Mars architecture is a living blueprint, not a booked mission — a distinction the agency now makes with unusual candor. History has taught a hard lesson: a Mars date without an unbroken sequence of approved, funded, and tested programs is not a prediction but a wish. The measure of real progress is