Gundam Creator Calls Mars Colonization a “Fantasy for Simpletons”
Yoshiyuki Tomino, the man who created the famous Gundam anime, has said that humans will never live in space. This may surprise many people since Gundam is all about people living in space colonies. But after many years of thinking about the idea, Tomino has now decided that space colonization is impossible.
Tomino spoke about this during Spacetide 2025, a space industry event held in Tokyo. He joined Yoshifumi Inatani, a professor from JAXA (Japan’s space agency), for a discussion about space travel and life beyond Earth.
His comments were reported by The Sankei Shimbun and translated by Automaton. During the event, Tomino shared strong opinions about the future of humans in space.
“Humans will never be able to live in space,” Tomino said clearly during the talk. He also criticized the idea of colonizing Mars, calling out people who think it’s a realistic plan. According to Tomino, people don’t understand how dangerous space really is. In his words, “All the simpletons saying ‘Let’s immigrate to Mars’ have no idea how cruel outer space actually is… What are you gonna do about fuel when the time comes to return [to Earth]?”
He said that people who support the idea of moving to Mars often don’t think through the real problems. He pointed out that there are no supply stations on Mars to help people survive. He said, “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.”
Even though Gundam tells stories of humans building large space colonies and leaving Earth, Tomino said that he personally never believed it could really happen. He spent more than 20 years thinking about the problem, trying to figure out how people could live in space, but in the end, he couldn’t find any solution.
He explained this during the talk, saying, “I never had a chance to openly say this when I was working on Gundam. But even after 20 years of thinking about it, I couldn’t find a way for people to actually live in space.”
Instead of dreaming about Mars, Tomino suggested that Japan should focus on more realistic space projects. He said that it would be better for the country to work on travel near Earth, like missions in low Earth orbit. He also said that sending leaders, scientists, and young people into nearby space would be a smarter goal than trying to settle faraway planets.
Tomino’s words stand out because his own work helped popularize the idea of humans living in space. But now, after many years of thinking about it, he believes the whole idea of space colonization is just a fantasy. According to him, people who believe in it simply don’t understand the true dangers of space.
Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!
