WASHINGTON – Landing astronauts on Mars is unaffordable given today’s budget realities, but the U.S. can’t afford not to undertake such a mission.
That’s the thrust of a new congressionally mandated report by the National Research Council. The 285-page analysis, released Wednesday, concludes that a successful trip to the Red Planet depends on a well-financed, “disciplined” approach with broad buy-in that must not fluctuate from administration to administration.
“Our committee concluded that any human exploration program will only succeed if it is appropriately funded and receives a sustained commitment on the part of those who govern our nation,” said Purdue University President Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor who co-chaired the committee authoring the report. “That commitment cannot change direction election after election. Our elected leaders are the critical enablers of the nation’s investment in human spaceflight, and only they can assure that the leadership, personnel, governance and resources are in place in our human exploration program.”
The report studied three different “pathways” to demonstrate what sort of trade-offs might have to be made regarding affordability, schedule and risk, and the frequency of missions to intermediate destinations.
“All the pathways culminate in landing on the surface of Mars – which is the most challenging yet technically feasible destination – and have anywhere between three and six steps that include some combination of missions to asteroids, the moon and Martian moons,” the news release accompanying the report said.
NASA is spending billions on a mission to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s.
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