According to NASA director Jim Bridenstine, the next person on the moon is likely to be a woman. But that's not all: the first person on Mars, apparently, will also be a woman. And according to the former chief scientist of NASA, the landing of people on the Red Planet could take place in the next five years.
In a recent radio interview, NASA Director Jim Bridenstine suggested that women will play a major role in the future of space exploration: thus, according to him, the next person on the moon is likely to be a woman. But that's not all: Bridenstein believes that the first human on Mars will likely also be a woman. Such claims are particularly interesting given that fewer than a third of NASA's active astronauts are women.
Bridenstine's comment was in response to a tweet during his interview on Public Science International Science Friday. Unfortunately, the director of NASA had only 30 seconds to respond, so he did not specify why the department could send a woman to the moon and Mars more likely than a man, only citing the fact that the first ever release of a women's team is scheduled for March 29 into open space from the ISS. Bridenstine also noted that NASA is committed to having a wide and varied lineup of talented astronauts.
In addition, the director of NASA emphasized that the mission to the moon is being prepared carefully and thoroughly enough not only to visit the satellite once, but to stay there and increase the human presence.
“On the next mission to the moon, we are not going to leave flags and footprints and not return for another 50 years. This time we are going to stay there, which means we need commercial, international partners. We need rockets that can be reused, just like any element needed to create the necessary infrastructure,”said Bridenstine.
NASA's plans are interestingly related to another interview given by former chief scientist Ellen Stofan on the Vox podcast. Despite the fact that NASA's current goal is to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, the agency could achieve this result much sooner, she said. According to Stofan, experts could do this within the next five years, if they tried. The scientist noted that a quick time frame may become possible if the US "spends money" on this event, but stressed that she does not believe that NASA, in view of this, should accelerate.
Her comments came less than two months after Donald Trump's former aide Cliff Sims said the US president was offering NASA an unlimited budget in 2017 if the agency can get to Mars before the end of his presidential term in 2020. Then the acting director of NASA, Robert Lightfoot Jr., told Trump that this was impossible. Despite the fact that, according to Stofan, the United States is capable of sending humans to Mars by 2024, she said that should not be the country's main goal.
When asked why the goal of landing humans on Mars should be a priority, Stofan replied that most of the exploration of Mars so far has been devoted to finding water, but now we are approaching the point where people need to personally determine where to land rovers. and spaceships.
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“Now we are really looking for signs of ancient life, and as we do this more and more, we will need really smart, flexible and creative solutions on the surface of the Red Planet as part of its study. And I would say that the best solution to this problem is to send a man to Mars,”sums up Stofan.
Dmitry Mazalev