Nasa recently announced more steps for their plan for Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). According to Nasa’s site, this mission will take place during the 2020’s and, “will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including Mars” Nasa’s mission won’t take us directly to Mars though, as it will provide as a demonstration, which will then eventually send astronauts to Mars. But ARM does support getting our astronauts closer to the exploration of Mars, which will be pretty cool to see. On this mission, “a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts…”
While NASA seems to be taking us further into the belly of the monster, there are some risks that come with the mission to Mars. According to mars-one.com, the ticket to Mars may be a one way. “It requires developing bigger rockets that need a larger landing systems and launch capability on Mars” We need technology we don’t have, like bigger rockets and better landing systems. According to Mars-one, this mission is (as of right now) scheduled for 2024.
NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, had envisioned himself to be the first one on Mars when he first began his training in the 80’s. Bolden says, ” we have a lot of work to do to get humans to Mars, but we’ll get there” Bolden goes on to say that we’re the closest we’ve ever been to setting foot on Mars, only four years away.