Press Room

The Latest Updates On NASA’s Manned Mission To Mars

Aerospace

The concept of planning a manned mission to Mars has been a topic of ongoing discussion and debate since the 1950's. In each decade since, conferences, universities and international organizations from both the public and private sector have proposed different tactics to turn this goal into a reality. In late 2015, NASA finally released its own official three-phase plan for reaching Mars. Of particular note: the first phase of this plan is already underway. Read on for the freshest updates on NASA's unfolding plan.

Three Phases to Mars

This outline covers the three phases proposed by NASA to enable a manned mission to reach Mars.

• Phase 1: “Earth Reliant.” In this phase, NASA will continue using the International Space Station (ISS) as a launching pad to study how deep space travel will affect technology and personnel. This phase is expected to last through the year 2024.
• Phase 2: “Proving Ground.” In Phase 2, NASA plans to capture an asteroid, ideally by the year 2020, to help facilitate its ongoing study of deep space conditions. As well, data from Phase 1 will be used to construct viable habitation facilities to support extended manned deep space missions. The goal here is to facilitate deep space manned missions by the early 2030's.
• Phase 3: “Earth Independent.” In this final phase, NASA breaks free of its dependence on the ISS and Earth resources by learning to harvest the necessary supplies from Mars instead. Surface habitations on Mars are stable and easy to maintain as the Mars colony continues to expand

Funding a Mission to Mars

The most pressing stumbling block to this ambitious but not unreasonable three phase plan is funding. With an estimated price tag at anywhere from $500 billion to $1 trillion, it is already clear NASA will not be able to fund this undertaking solo. However, the usual partner choices are suddenly no longer available.

Here is what is going on with NASA's former proposed Mars partners:

• Russia. The country is cutting back on its space funding.
• China. The USA is barred from partnering with China due to security concerns.
• ESA (European Space Agency). The ESA has announced plans to focus on the Moon instead.

This makes private partners a much more logical and likely choice for NASA moving forward.

Here are some potentially viable private sector partner candidates with complimentary interests in reaching Mars:

• SpaceX. Elon Musk's brainchild, SpaceX has been testing sustainable spacecraft since the company's launch in 2002. Currently, SpaceX's Dragon craft is one of the primary craft replenishing supplies for crew working and living on the ISS while it works on Falcon Heavy, the proposed most powerful rocket ever invented.
• Blue Origin. Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, sits at the helm of Blue Origin, a company founded in 2000. While initially close-mouthed about its work other than stating it wanted to be involved in space transportation and Earth preservation, recently Blue Origin successfully launched and landed the first sub-orbital rocket+booster from a facility in West Texas, which is proof that it is possible to make reusable rockets.

Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have worked with multiple other private partners that already contract with the U.S. government to provide technology and resources to NASA, including the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing Defense, Space & Security.

Congress Steps Into the Mix

As it turns out, Congress seems to think NASA is at least well-funded enough to begin work on a prototype of habitation capable of sustaining life on other planets.

Specifically, Congress wants NASA to use $55 million of its $19.3 billion allotted budget monies to develop and test such a prototype - and preferably by 2018. But it only has 180 days to turn in its first status report on these new marching orders.

NASA's current private partners for this undertaking, which has been dubbed Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships, or NEXTSteps. These four partners include Boeing, Bigelow Aerospace, Orbital ATK and Lockheed Martin, with Bigelow being an early frontrunner with its prototype “inflatable habitat” (technically called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module)

What the Future Holds for NASA and Mars

While there is no way to predict with certainty at this point precisely how future plans will unfold from here, what does seem relatively certain is that a manned mission to Mars is absolutely in NASA's future.