NASA: Humans on Mars by 2035 is 'primary focus'

chron.com ^ | May 29, 2014 | Carol Christian |

[BenLurkin]

NASA has been talking about sending people to Mars by 2035.

That goal is still on the books, despite recent upheaval in the space program, according to two of the agency's top scientists.

"In the near term, Mars remains our primary focus," Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist said May 15 in a talk at the Royal Institution in London

...

....scientists [also] decided to "redirect" an asteroid into an orbit of the moon and are searching for an asteroid that's an appropriate candidate.

"Once we find the right one, we'll use all the technology we've got," he said. "We'll snag it, we'll bag it and we'll drag it into orbit around the moon. Then we can send humans to a target that enables us to practice deep space operations."

NASA is looking for an asteroid that's about 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter. One idea is to enclose the asteroid in a gigantic, 20-meter bag and push it into orbit around the moon...

[Moonman62]

20 years to get to Mars? They’ll be pushing it to get back to the Moon in 20 years.

SpaceX will beat them there and will do it for much less money.

[KarlInOhio]

Time to hang out the hitchhiking signs to get into orbit.

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你去我的方式？

You have to go 100 miles up before you travel tens of millions of miles, and we don't have that capability anymore.

[oldtech]

When did they change NASA’s objective back to space travel?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3161958/posts?page=15#15

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3161958/posts?page=49#49

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/spacex/index