Exploration forum showcases NASA’s Human Path to Mars
An April 29 exploration forum aired on NASA Television from NASA headquarters, featured Administrator Charles Bolden and other agency leadership showcasing NASA’s human exploration path to Mars. NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.
We aren't gonna colonize the solar system with chemical rockets. That will require nuclear powered spacecraft. Until nasa puts the plans for such spacecraft on the table any talk of human missions to Mars and beyond is just talk.
I have a feeling that the first mission for sls, after testing, will be to the JWST.. on a similar mission to when they had to correct Hubbles defective mirror..
I hope this isn't the case, but humans to a Lagrange point was one of the missions always slated, since Constellation, and this type of mission would also give a boost to the opinion of those that may question the value of a huge rocket , and manned spaceflight in general.
I am among those that question it too, by the way. I'm not opposed, but robots are getting better and better, and the reasons given for the human presence on these missions, in this forum are far outweighed by the problems involved with humans being kept alive in space.
it's mentioned that humans will be able to rove further than curiosity… which may be true, but more and better rovers would still be cheaper and just as successful, as a human presence…. and who knows the capability that a robotic Rover may have in the timeframe we are talking about.
Human spaceflight, with current and foreseeable technology, is almost all romance, not science.
humans on one of these missions, as I mentioned ntioend, with current tech, will be occupied with sheer survival almost all the time, as they are even on ISS.
Im still all for it, but would hate to think we would lose a Europa lander, or a Neptune or Uranus orbiter (among countless other possibilities) for the sake of putting a flag on Mars, or even more pointlessly , an asteroid.