From very early on in our pop culture, it has been imagined that one day the human race would set foot on our red planet neighbor but for many years that seemed like just a fantasy which would never really happen but now there is a strong possibility. Government agency like NASA and even not so trusted companies like Mars One have laid out plans to reach the planet and send humans to it for the first time. NASA being a more reliable and trusted resource, it could be said that their goals are much more realistic but still a bit optimistic. Their plan is to land astronauts on an asteroid between us and Mars in the years of 2020 to collect samples and from the knowledge gained from that trip, eventually make way to Mars. The asteroid on which they would land, would be one that has been forced to orbit our moon. Trips like these will also put some experiments into real world testing like solar electric propulsion in order to see how effective it could be for space travel. For over 40 years, their has been rovers and other robots studying the planet and they
would continue their investigations to make it as safe as possible for astronauts to roam the red planet without the dangers of radiation, gravity, atmosphere, etc.(https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars)
Now on the other hand, there is a more unorthodox company out there trying to be the first to land a human on Mars but it has many flaws before it could be anywhere close to competing with NASA’s mission. Mars One plans colonize the planet by selecting a few individuals to live there with the given resources. The thing about there plan is that the astronauts that would be traveling there would basically be human guinea pigs as they would not be able to leave the planet and they would study how humans could survive on Mars. But it is a bit unrealistic but they are nonprofit and they are relying on
donations to carryout their mission and have no real founders or investors that could make this a reality. Not only that but the astronauts are not real astronauts, they are just regular people that being selected.(http://www.mars-one.com)
On the other hand there is still much hope left as other companies are also pitching into the efforts of accomplishing this. Legitimate companies like Virgin Galactic and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, and his company SpaceX are investing much into the research and field testing of new technologies that one day could land us on Mars.(http://www.cnet.com/news/lets-go-to-mars-the-future-of-space-travel/)