By 
May 12th, 2017
Credit: James Vaughan
Explore Mars, Inc. has unleashed their new 2017 report written to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades.
Among a set of key recommendations:
Credit: James Vaughan
- Implement a next generation orbiter as soon as possible to prospect for resources (notably water) that will reduce the overall cost of missions to Mars while providing significant science gains. Even if use of on-the-spot Mars resourcs is not needed for the initial missions to Mars, this reconnaissance is needed to select the human landing site. Such an orbiter is also key to replace aging telecommunications infrastructure at Mars.
- Complete a round trip demo to the Martian system via a Mars Sample Return. The samples are needed not only for the revolutionary science that would be achieved but also to address significant toxicity and backward contamination concerns for human beings, including the first human explorers of Mars.
- Special emphasis should be made to inform the public that landing humans on Mars by 2033 is an achievable goal. While international and private lunar surface missions should be applauded, increased education needs to be undertaken to articulate why lunar surface operations are not the best path to Mars
The Humans To Mars Report 2017 can be viewed in its entirety at:
https://www.exploremars.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/H2MR_2017_Final_webv1.pdf
Posted in Space News
