US contemplates manned Mars mission

Washington Post : At this week’s Humans to Mars Summit being held in Washington, DC, NASA officials and others are discussing the technical, scientific, and policy-related challenges involved in landing astronauts on the surface of Mars. William Gerstenmaier, John Grunsfeld, and Michael Gazarik, the NASA associate administrators for human exploration, science, and space technology, respectively, were cautiously optimistic about such a mission. There are a number of technological challenges, among them the difficulty of landing a craft on Mars’s surface because of the planet’s extremely thin atmosphere. Although NASA succeeded in landing the Curiosity rover last year, the payload was relatively small. A spaceship with astronauts would probably require a payload about 40 times heavier, according to Gazarik. Another major issue is funding, which could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Besides NASA, a number of private entrepreneurs are also working to send humans to Mars and may help drive the technology.