Experts tell Congress that NASA’s plan to reach Mars is in trouble

Ars Technica : For the past five years, NASA has stated that one of its primary goals is crewed missions to Mars. On Wednesday, a House space subcommittee heard comments from three outside experts about NASA’s plans. John Sommerer, who was the chair of a National Research Council panel that reviewed NASA’s human spaceflight programs in a 2014 report, indicated that to meet the agency’s goals would require roughly $500 billion over the next 20 to 40 years. In contrast, NASA director Charles Bolden and other agency officials have said that they are comfortable with the agency’s current budget for human exploration, plus increases for inflation, which only totals to $180 billion over 20 years. However, that amount would not allow for continued support of the International Space Station. Tom Young, former director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, agreed with Sommerer that NASA does not have a clearly defined plan for reaching Mars. Young and Sommerer said that NASA would need to either receive a significant budget boost or narrow its focus and shift funds away from other programs.