According to this AP article, The year is 2030. Man will walk on Mars if everything goes according to plan, and if the government gives them adequate funding.
NASA plans to send six to eight astronauts. The trip would take six months each way, and they’ll stay there for 18 months. The mission “will give scientists the chance for unique research on everything from looking for other life forms and for the origin of life on Earth to the effects of partial gravity on bone loss.”
NASA is already working on a food menu that would last them the two and a half year trip.
Europe, Russia, and China have already done a simulated Mars mission to test the “mental and physical strains” of such a trip. In this mocked journey, six crew members were isolated for 520 days on a mock spacecraft and martian land.
The only thing is what’s next after we walk on Mars? We walked on the moon, but that seems to be extend of that achievement. We haven’t done anything with the moon yet.
