When do you think there will be a manned mission to Mars?

Question

The deadline of 2019 was set by George Bush senior in the early 90's, are they still sticking to this and is it feasible.

Answer 1

Funding....
Remember that word from that that movie? There is no rush, no interest, no need, no mass desire to spend billions upon billions so some guy can have another "...small step for man...."
I think that we will be extremely lucky to have another man on the moon by 2019.

Answer 2

So far as the "Vision for Space Exploration" goes, it's all up to the next administration. Really, there's nothing binding in what Bush Jr. has charged NASA to do. It's the next President's option.

The 2019 deadline by Bush Sr. was scrapped soon after he floated it. I seem to remember that NASA's leaders panicked and submitted an outrageously expensive budget proposal for the mission - something like $100 billion dollars! - and Congress said, "No thanks, let's just keep the Shuttle flying so our constituents around NASA centers will have jobs and vote for us."

There's such international interest in missions to the moon that I think there may be a chance we'll actually go through with landing there again. But Mars?

IMHO it all rests on whether or not we actually invest in activties that make life better on Earth, out there. I agree that space science is typically more cost-effective when done with probes - *given the horrendous cost of launching payloads to orbit.* But there's more out there than scientific information.

The devil of it all is, there's a few thousand gigawatts of energy ready to be shipped to darn near any point on Earth from space. Google "solar power satellites" sometime, and also ask Uncle Google about "m-class asteroids," the smallest of which has trillions of dollars of strategic metals in them that we won't have to rip out of the Earth's crust.

That digression was to establish the foundation for my answer: we may not have a manned mission to Mars by 2019. We might have a dozen such missions to Mars, and multiple ones to other planets as well, by, say, 2035, if we first build up space industry to pay for itself, and to make life better here on Earth.

Answer 3

I think the deadline was when George W. Bush intends to go to Mars and run for President, if of course, Mars is still a planet.

NASA should begin to consider landing a man on Earth !

Answer 4

Unfortunately, the manned space program has had too much trouble in recent years (shuttles blowing up) for a mission to Mars. I will be so excited, if am I wrong. If NASA invests in unmanned missions, it will be able to accomplish a lot more without the tremendous expense. I believe that it important to continue space science in any means and that being too focused manned missions may slow down the process.

Answer 5

I doubt it.

I saw on the news just yesterday that they are aiming to go to the MOON by the year 2020....I think it was 2020 atleast.

Also, do you have any idea how zero-gravity affects our bodies? Our organs float around, our bones begin to desenagrate(excuse the spelling), etc. Our whole bodies are built for the gravity on Earth. That's why astronauts have to go to rehab after they come back. Flying to Mars, staying there for a while, and coming back would cause irreversible damage to the crazy astronauts' bodies.

But you never know what new technology will come out in the years to come.

Answer 6

I do not think it will be as soon as 2019. While a crash program with vast funding could probably do it, nobody wants to spend the billions that would require.

Answer 7

Manned missions are politically valuable, but has little scientific value.

I hope NASA concentrates their efforts on more unmanned missions.

Answer 8

There's no telling..you'll have to ask the politicians...I am sure it's possible now...just as I am pretty sure we could send someone to our nearest solar neighbor at this point if the resources were set aside for it. It's all political at this point.

Answer 9

One thing is to say it and another very different is to give the necessary funding to accomplish it.