I’m not a movie reviewer, so I’ll sum up The Martian simply by saying it was an engrossing book, and I think Ridley Scott did a great job translating the film into a potential sci-fi blockbuster. I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the movie.

For NASA, this movie feels like the natural successor to Apollo 13. Astronauts get into trouble, and through gee-whizzery in space and on the ground, make it through safely. NASA looks good. Spaceflight is glorious. Roll credits.

NASA is promoting the heck out of The Martian, and I understand why. The movie brings Mars alive, it reminds people how awesome it would be to have astronauts there, and validates NASA’s goal of reaching Mars in the 2030s. (For a lot of reasons that goal seems a stretch.)

What I’m concerned about is the way in which a mission to Mars is portrayed in the book and film. It looks a lot like an Apollo mission to Mars, and in 2015 that’s a problem.

From outward appearances, almost all of the hardware is NASA hardware. All of the important decisions are made by NASA people. There isn’t a whiff of commercial space in the film. Not a SpaceX, nor even a Boeing. It’s all NASA. (Not that NASA isn’t great. It is.)

Moreover of the six astronauts in Mark Watney’s crew, five are Americans and one German. NASA’s mission to Mars is nearly American only. (I’m American. I love America.)

This might all be fine except for the fact that it isn’t 1969.

It’s 2015.

The world has changed. Spaceflight has changed. And NASA isn’t going anywhere without private and international partners. It simply can’t begin to afford an Apollo-like, go-it-alone, brute force mission to Mars.

A few years ago SpaceX began flying cargo supply missions to the International Space Station. By NASA’s own estimates it would have cost the agency six or eight times as much had it developed that capability through its traditional spacecraft building methods. NASA is slowly privatizing, but if it is to reach Mars any time in the 2030s it must do so more rapidly.

Another big problem for NASA is that White House leadership changes every four to eight years. NASA has been on its “Journey to Mars” for four years or so now, but that could very well change with the next President. He or she might think the moon is a better first stop, or could scrap the Mars program entirely.

NASA needs stability to accomplish long-range goals. That means it must enter into long-term plans with major international players, which would force the White House and Congress to honor those deals over decades. Unfortunately there is, as yet, no international consensus that NASA and its partners should go to Mars. Many want to go to the moon first.

To be fair, in an interview earlier this year, The Martian’s author, Andy Weir, acknowledged much of this. Moreover, in the film, China’s space program actually saves the day with a spare rocket to deliver supplies to Watney on Mars.

But I’m afraid the public will see an all NASA crew landing in all NASA vehicles on Mars, and assume all is well on our happy little journey to Mars. It unfortunately is not.