Do you think we will get to Mars in the next decade or so?

Question

It would be good for Mankind to achieve instead of killing each other like we are right now.

Answer 1

Definitely not in the 10 or so years. Best case would be 25 years in my opinion. More likely is 50 years.

Answer 2

I think we'll get there, but it will take more than 10 years. Maybe in 20 years we'll make it, probably in 30. There's several reasons for this:

First - there's a lot of planning, engineering, testing, and training to be done before we can do something like this. It took almost 10 years just to get to the moon - it'll take more to get to Mars.

Second - Mars is a long, LONG way - much further than the moon. That means we need to send lots more supplies like air, food, water, etc. That means bigger ships, more launches to get everything ready to go, maybe to boost all those supplies into orbit and put them into a Mars-bound ship that's in orbit waiting to depart.

Third - Mars' orbit doesn't match ours very often. Some times Mars is further ahead of us, sometimes it's behind us, sometimes it's on the other side of the sun from us. This means that the times when Mars is closest to Earth can come only every year or two, maybe. So even if everything is ready to go now, we may have another year for the planets to be close enough to each other to make success more likely. And that means that a stay on Mars may have to be fairly short, or else the astronauts may have to plan to stay a year or so until the planets come back into alignment.

Answer 3

I'll agree with your sentiment--but it will take longer to reach Mars than that. My guess--sometime in the 2040's--but maybe the 2030's

But I think it likely that the first manned expeditions beyond the moon will be before that--maybe by the end of the 2020s--to Near-Earth Asteroids. Some can be reached in much less time than Mars--and you don't have to have a landing rocket, etc.--because these asteroids have very little gravity. It's a good option--we can learn a lot--and "practice" interplanetary flight in preparation ffor Mars.

Just my opinion--but I'll put money on teh idea.