Today, the American space Agency NASA officially acknowledged the fact that at the current size of the budget they can’t afford to send humans to Mars. The next steps of the Agency in this direction will depend on how to change their funding from the us government. But at the moment the colonization of Mars is the most dependent on private companies like SpaceX, and not directly dependent on the state of the Agency.
NASA has in recent years been argued that sending humans to Mars is one of the primary tasks. Agency experts even developed a specific step-by-step plan to achieve that goal and began its implementation. But in the end all boils down to funding, which is not always enough. Head of manned flight into space William Gerstenmaier made a statement that NASA can’t afford the continuation of this program at the current size of the budget.
“I cannot say the date of sending humans to Mars. And the reason for this lies in the fact that even grown on 2% of the Agency’s budget does not allow us to create a system of soft landing on the surface of the red planet. And descent, and landing is one of the main challenges of our Mars,” said Gerstenmaier.
Lately, NASA has invested heavily in the development of SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. As a result, the Agency had not even begun to develop a means of landing and takeoff from the surface of Mars. Gerstenmaier, admitted that plans for Mars will have to postpone indefinitely. And while NASA will focus on more real missions. For example, further exploration of the moon. At the same time Elon Musk has already promised in the autumn to publish its future plans for Mars. Maybe he will give us the news.
NASA has officially acknowledged that they have no money to send humans to Mars
Sergey Grey