Yoshiyuki Tomino, the original creator of Mobile Suit Gundam, recently made a guest appearance at SPACETIDE 2025, a commercial space conference that took place this week in Tokyo. As reported by The Sankei Shimbun, Tomino participated in a joint discussion panel with renowned JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) professor Yoshifumi Inatani. The two delved into many space-related topics, including “space colonies,” one of the major themes Tomino covered in the Gundam series.
However, despite it being a concept he’s explored his work, Tomino expressed a pessimistic opinion on the matter, stating that “humans will never be able to live in space.” Apparently, this thought has been on his mind ever since creating the original Gundam concept.
“All the simpletons saying ‘Let’s immigrate to Mars’ have no idea how cruel outer space actually is. They’re just a bunch of people who don’t have the power to even fathom the distance between [us] and space.” He continues, “If you flew a rocket to Mars, what are you gonna do about fuel when the time comes to return [to Earth]? All of the people who say, ‘Let’s send humans to Mars’ without considering the fact that there are no supply bases there are a bunch of amateurs.”
Mobile Suit Gundam depicts a world in which humans immigrated to manmade space colonies due to overpopulation on Earth, and almost all mainline entries in the series depict these settlements. Apparently, Tomino spent over twenty years trying to think of how the people in Gundam could realistically realize immigration into space, and his final conclusion was – they can’t. “I never had a chance to openly say this when I was working on Gundam.”
On the other hand, Tomino emphasized that Japan’s space expansion should be focusing on space travel instead. “I believe that in the next 10 years, Japan should work on enabling people to do sightseeing tours in the low Earth orbit. Politicians, military personnel, religious figures and scientists should also be taken to low Earth orbit to see the Earth from there, not just tourists. “I’m sure that their view of the world would change,” he said. “I also want the children to be able to experience this, but for that. we’ll need to make rockets that are foolproof.”
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Who says we have to come back? I’m hoping to build a tomb remotely, that will mummify and preserve me until the end of the universe.
Let me get this straight. The clown who writes comics for a living is going to put down Musk, a guy who ACTUALLY BUILDS ROCKETS, and explain that he doesn’t understand space? What a jack off. Don’t worry, fiction writer, the world is well aware of what space is like, you’re not telling anyone any they don’t already know.
“..rockets that are foolproof.”. Another idiot who would relegate humanity to living in mud huts.. too afraid to take a risk. What a loser.
You mean before or after Elon delivers full self-driving… when was that deadline?
five years ago?
This is a pretty L take if I ever saw one especially when even Nasa is working on establishing a permanent moon base in 2026-2027 which we’ll be using as an inbetween for trips to mars for resupply, in the 2040’s beyond the early stages of colonies on mars will begin it Will take hundreds of years for us to terraform or build metropolis on mars but it is by no means impossible and is a long sought after dream of mankind that shall be realized, In addition to that Venus is expected to host laboratories in its cloud layer via floating cities.. While currently the realm of science fiction and hypothesis when the technology becomes available it will be realized.
Ah yes, let’s take astronomy advice from some arrogant prick who’s job is drawing pictures of robots in space. What could go wrong?
Alright settle down dreamers.
Musk has barely gotten rockets to space on a regular schedule, and at any given point and time there are fewer than 30 humans in space at any given time. Something that requires countless man hours, calculations, resources, and money. And those folks are still within orbit of the planet.
He said colonies on Mars. Is it possible? Sure. But I promise it won’t be until our grandkids are past retirement age before they even see a feasible way to get it done.
Not to mention, we can barely maintain a society here with ample resources without violence sooo….let’s think rationally and not like the people he’s referring to.
Why are people defending the Musk rat that has no actual beliefs beyond seeking validation of sweaty gamer nerds and leaving Earth? Guys I can smell you through my screen, chill lol.
I was thinking about what Elon saud and I’m PRETTY sure the first crew can expect to be “permanent” residents of Mars. ALSO, I don’t see us emigrating to another planet BEFORE we figure how to EFFICIENTLY detect valuable materials, mine AND refine them AND THEN we gotta figure out how to do all that in outer space. In short, the way OTHER technologies are advancing it could may several decades or more to achieve the requirements, but other than what I mentioned I don’t see why not ESPECIALLY considering how commercialized is becoming and the possibility of an international/multi conglomerate effort. 🤓🤷🏿
He’s simply voicing common sense. His life’s work focuses on stories of space colonization- but he’s able to understand the logistics. It’s an unbelievable waste of time and money. We live in an oasis and wanna goto the desert?
The moon is 238,900 miles from earth.
The closest Mars gets to earth is 33.9 MILLION miles.
Food and water consumption to sustain a population.
Just common sense that space colonies are not just improbable, they’re downright idiotic.
@JoeR “The clown who writes comics for a living is going to put down Musk, a guy who ACTUALLY BUILDS ROCKETS”
Musk wasn’t even mentioned? Thinking he builds rockets is another thing.
“too afraid to take a risk”
You know he’s talking about kids right? You’re willing to take risks with kids safety.
Not wrong, but not right either
Imagine your car is breaking down. Check engine, bad sounds. The guy in the backseat, who knows how to fix cars, says “I’ll hop out and walk until I find a car frame with no engine and I’ll rebuild the whole thing from scratch. Then you can ride with me.”
Just because hes smart enough to rebuild a car from scratch doesn’t mean his idea isnt stupid as F.
Its kind of funny the fact that the gundam creator doesn’t see it as ever possible. He really put those 20 years of thinking to use eh. Lmao. What a joke. Obviously the first people that go there are not planning on coming back if we’re seriously wanting to start a colony on mars. The first thing they even do there would be to establish power and a way to sustain the colony (food, water, etc) and if they did want to come back it takes less than 1 year to get to mars. 9 months currently and these space companies are looking to make it 6 months. While research on the photon propulsion system is progressing with a favorable outcome. If a photon propulsion system were to be integrated it would take only 3 days. It’s frustrating when someone says they did all this amount of work for 20 years yet its 4 word query on google to get the ball rolling into an answer. (Manned mission to Mars). It was only recently that we wanted to visit Mars and we’ve since went to the Moon and we’ll be going back to the Moon(Artemis program in 2026) for longer periods of time which will further help with a mission to Mars. It’s only a matter of time. Its not a question of possibility at this rate. The only reason it hasnt happened sooner is because of the politics of it all. I appreciate you if you read all of this. It just gets my blood boiling when someone calls others simpletons and puts them down especially when that person themselves is the incompetent one. 20 years of “thinking” yet 0 years of actual research. This is why its not up to just 1 person.
You should stop talking.
Wow, I was expecting some profound take like we will not survive as a species long enough but this is jus waiting to be proven wrong and become one of those quotes.
What a dumb take
Honestly, as someone who desperately wants space travel as I’ve been a Star Wars fan longer than I have a Gundam fan…it’s fantasy. Both the stories and the ideas of commercialized space travel. It’s all hypothetical in reality and what we’ve done as a species makes me feel like we probably shouldn’t try and expand into the universe unless the Earth is literally Wall-E level fucked or there are genuine overpopulation concerns.
simpleton huh
How many rockets this guy made in real life BTW? Not drawings, rockets that actually fly
we cant even live peacefully here now. we’ll never be able to pull something like that off. it would be a bare wasteland 1st from us(humans) destroying each other 1st
Tomino is not a comic writer, and he’s talking about rockets that, say, don’t unexpectedly explode on a regular basis when commercially manufactured.
He does have a point when you think about it in the grand scheme of things. There’s tons of logistics from finances and resources that have to be taken into account when it comes to colonization into other planets. The same had to be said when it came to colonization for other countries centuries before; if you go into another country without a proper plan when it comes to colonizing, not only will you not be able to handle the resources, you won’t even know where to find them or what they are. It’s the same deal in space. So yeah I have to agree
It’d be a lot more feasible to start colonizing Mars if we did so with the intention that the first people on Mars won’t be coming back to Earth. We as a society aren’t ready for that discussion, though.
Such hubris,who is he to think he is arbiter of mankind’s destiny? Stick to drawing cartoons for children.
This is why ever single person who is seriously talking about space exploration, manned missions to Mars and future colonization; are say “we need to get back on the moon to develop techniques, technology and materials.”.
This is why every single person who is seriously talking about space exploration, manned missions to Mars and future colonization; are say “we need to get back on the moon to develop techniques, technology and materials.”.
That’s the problem you can’t think realistically out of your own scope. Besides there’s no barrier to make Gundam where people are taking commercial travels and have space immigration. All you need is an imagination with some realistic inspiration. And that’s where his age is coming to him. He already did space magic somewhat believable in Gundam. And yet can’t fathom the possibility for commercial space travel. The only thing I would agree about that humans can’t in space is simply human greed.
So, he highlights all the issues that have, thus far, kept us from being a space-faring species. But he fails to take account for human ingenuity.
The question is.. Will we be able to colonize space before extinction?
To be fair, he’s not wrong about how we may never be able to. Mars Is not only millions of miles away, but it is a huge planet that does not have resources. We’d need to bring our own. Can we terraform it? Possibly, but it’d take a long time and there’d be many issues with it. The air quality it very poor, and asteroids are known to hit the planet regularly. We’d need a sort of protective greenhouse.
The Venus lab is… Oh dear, Venus is so hot that it can melt lead. How are we gonna build a lab there? How are we gonna live there without an ice hot cooler that is incapable of melting under the heat? A lab on Venus? A genius can have a concept, but if that concept hits an absolute roadblock, it may not come to fruition. Not everyone’s dreams will come true.
I think people here are offended because he called them “simpletons,” and people are very defensive today. However, while I get how people could see it happening, it’ll take millions of years before we could move there.
Also, Earth is a lustrous environment, moving to Mars as a permanent colony is like moving to an inhospitable desert, one that it’ll take millions of years to become hospitable.
We should work on our environment instead of such foreign areas. Venus is too hot to host any labs, and floating cities in It’s cloud layer? That’s closer to the sky which is closer to the sun depending on the angle of which the planet is facing the sun, which means that since it’s so hot it can melt lead, then the floating cities will melt. People who would needs heck tons of protective gear would be up there and FRYING. The highest amount of melanin is pitch black skin (literally)with so much Melanin that it literally shines grey in lighting. Those people with that high of melanin have almost 0 chance of skin cancer. Those are the south Sudanese and it’d HAVE to be them to go there because there skin is so dark that they high amounts of melanin to protect them Anyone with albinism (because they have 0 protective melanin) would die instantly. They’d fry. They’d need a new kind of sunscreen to handle it. We can’t survive in temperatures that melt lead. We’d need an ultimate shield and we’d need to stay alive long enough to build it and we’d need to be able to send something that won’t melt under the intense heat.
The most likely one is the moon, but the moon is also hit with massive asteroids. It doesn’t have a lot of oxygen and we’d have to plant trees, manually care for them, use fertilizer that allows it to grow, and the moon would have to be in the right position so that it’d be facing the sun for the tree to survive and make oxygen. It is a LARGE amount of work, a lot of money, and would take a lot of resources.
Colonies may be possible, but you need to support colonies. We also have advanced nutritional needs. Protein, Vitamin D, calories, etc. We’ve never seen a plant grow on other planets.
Joe no one said musk yet you’re already on your knees preparing to give him the full package, hes stating that for the everyday man space living is rather unrealistic with what we have today, he’s being pessimistic but he’s not wrong.
Colonies on Mars? No harm to any local habitats. No flora and no fauna, no habitats to harm. Eliminates a lot of red tape. Now we just need the technology. Going to Mars and living on Mars are 2 very different things. Getting there is most certainly feasible, living there will require abundant resources. I imagine the terraforming, creating a space that has long term viability; this will be done with automation, AI, and robots. The first Mars settlement will likely consist of robots.
Living is space and living on a planet are two different things. Mars may be hostile but it has the resources that will allow slow colonization. Regolith, ice, Vallis Mariners, 3 miles deep trench provides radiation protection from all but above, easier access to material.
So many good ideas have come from sci fi writers and creators that “scientists” have stolen and implemented for there own. They’re all just ideas and let’s face it almost all fiction writings have much better ideas than cookie cutter scientists that have zero creative freedom. They must follow rubrics and always face ridicule for fringe ideas bla blah blah obvious words blah you’re so smart for being disagreeable.
Musk didn’t build shit either, he hired people and overworked them for his shit dream. Go suck musk’s balls you musk fanboy shit heads.
I agreed with the creator of gundam the same mind set i had its imposible to make a colony its imposible to coexist in space maintnamce cost repair prevent accident also the conflict of humanity through history wars never end and the cost is inmense as he said how they gona make space stations and tecnology to travel space in longer distance how they gona resuply . This is the same ishue with starwars.
We are already living in space on a rock hurling indefinitely to the unknown void of deep space.
JoeD you’re a fucking idiot. Musk doesnt design or build anything himself. Kill yourself you waste of fucking oxygen.
This is why I never liked Gundam and Code Geass is just better.
Very true about space and the simplistic thoughts of living on mars or the moon. It’s a waste of our natural resources and we should be investing in earth and cleaning the mess we made here.
A cartoonist who pairs slow political drama with robot toys for kids is telling career scientists what they can and cannot do? In the approximated words of Char Aznable: “Your soul is too weighed-down by gravity.”
This is why we are improving unmanned robots and AI. Robotics will soon replace gas powered machinery. We are simply waiting for the mind that will design a plan to leave this planet. We have the tools to do such a feat 🚀
A moron from an outdated, stagnant country that is Japan, trying to predict the future and its innovations.
Yeah, right. It’s like asking a hobo for financial advice.
I have 2 words that greatly support Mr. Domino’s stance. “Muscle Atrophy”. Unless we develop some kind of gravity manipulation technology or some way to safely supercharge muscle development and retention, long term habitation of less-than-Earth gravity would quickly lead to drastic detrimental changes in body development. First and foremost, the lack of use of our lower extremities to support our weight or move us about our environment would leave us with useless little baby-legs. Circulation and spinal issues would accompany them.
Also, folks should rethink their hero worship of Musk’s contribution to space exploration. Rockets aren’t exactly an intricately complex form of science, (it’s literally us riding a tube filled with explosions until gravity lets go.) He didn’t start the company, he bought his way in, is barely tolerated by the actual research and development teams within the company, and I highly doubt he’s involved at all with the only important part of rocketry… Trajectory mathematics. I’d sooner put Terrance Howard in charge… Less complaints about nose cone pointiness.
The man is right. Martian colonies will never attain true self reliance. They will always be dependent on the Earth for water. Even if they farm moisture or mine it from permafrost, the atmosphere that could hold onto it has long since blown away. Any sort of water cycle you could establish would be a losing game. To say nothing of the toxic nature of the regolith. The only way to keep such a colony going would be to constantly siphon resources from somewhere, Earth or meteors. Maybe you could split water to make fuel? Water will be a precious resource on that planet.
Maybe you might build a feasible colony on a moon of Jupiter, using energy generated by tidal forces with it’s mother world. Some are mentioning Venus’s “floating cities” concept, using buoyancy to float cities within a habitable zone. The idea is intriguing but the long term survival of such a colony seems dubious.