The possibility of the first humans landing on the Red Planet’s tiny moon Phobos by 2033 and on the Martian surface by the year 2039 does not sound impossible to NASA, given that they have adequate funding and technological advances in space travel.
The NASA scientists have stated that for this day to come, they cannot count of another “John F. Kennedy moment” referring to the 1961 incident where the president called for landing people on the moon which led to a boost in the budget reaching about 4.5 % share of the federal budget during the peak of the Apollo years. Currently the budget is less than 0.5% and NASA wants to go slow and steady by envisioning multiple missions which will ensure safe landing on Phobos by 2033 and following that a landing on Mars.
According to the Voice of America News, the pioneering exploration of Martian surface is already in progress and the Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity are roaming across Martian surface and sending across important information and photos back to Earth. Mars had the possibility of supporting microbial life in the past according to the recent data that the rovers have acquired.
A study conducted by a team of scientists that has been led by NASA’s Geronimo Villainueava of the Goddard Space Flight Center revealed that 4 billion years ago Mars had an ocean which covered almost about 19% of its surface area.
Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator said, “Landing on Mars isn’t just a pipe dream. It’s achievable. Mars matters to humanity and the pursuit of human progress. NASA will launch ExoMars orbiter designed to circle the Red Planet next year, and there are plans to launch another Mars rover in 2018. Robots are great for preliminary data and preparation, but we need humans on the Martian surface.”
The dream of landing on Phobos is dependent on the technology of NASA which is already on the its way of being developed, such as the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion crew capsule, which leaves out the more modern technologies like the nuclear thermal propulsion.
Oliver de Weck, an aeronautics and astronautics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said, “Keeping the cost of manned Mars exploration low could be done by treating Mars exploration as a network of missions with linked objectives. Using Mars water, hydrogen and methane could cut the initial mass sent to low-Earth orbit for a Mars mission by 48%.”
