After years of talking about interplanetary travel and deep space explorations, NASA admitted that it doesn't have enough funding to send humans to the red planet. The agency initially plans to launch a manned mission to Mars in 2030.
NASA has been promoting its project "Journey to Mars" for the past few years. Part of the mission is to develop transporters that will help send Humans to the planet. For some time, NASA's administrator Charles Bolden is confident that it can be done within the target date. Arstechnica reported that the agency's most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) and the agency's Orion spacecraft will make the mission possible.
Journey to Mars
Although NASA seemed confident at first, many doubted the possibility of the mission. Not because it appears to be an impossible feat but because it will require a huge amount of money to be completed. Even the National Research Council said that there is too little fund for a mission this grandiose. Aside from sending humans to the planet, sustaining a habitable colony on its surface is another story and would require more millions or billions in funding.
In a surprising twist, NASA admitted that it doesn't have enough funding it needed to get to Mars. This revelation was made by the agency's chief of human spaceflight during a meeting at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics last Wednesday, July 12.
Landing on Mars
William H. Gerstenmaier admitted that he cannot put a date on sending humans to Mars. The reason being is an insufficient budget. The agency needs more funding to achieve their ambitious project, this is despite President Donald Trump's affirmation of the mission to send humans to space.
The problem is that the agency was only given a two percent increase in budget and this is clearly not enough to develop landing systems on the surface of Mars.
Despite having a working plan on the rocket and capsule that will take humans there, without a working surface system on the planet, it will be very difficult to land.
This statement surprised many including the scientific community. Although it is obvious that landing systems are important, NASA has been confident that the project could be completed in time until the recent revelation.
Tragic Landing
NASA maybe taking a cue from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Schiaparelli Lander. Earlier this year, the lander reached the red planet and was working perfectly fine. However, seconds before the lander touched the ground it went offline. The investigations showed that there was an anomaly during landing that could be attributed to the landing system of the spacecraft.
This incident proves how difficult it is to land on the red planet and how essential having a landing system is. NASA spent a lot of money developing SLS and Orion and now they needed more funding to develop landing systems for the Journey To Mars.
