Flying to the Red Planet is a priority for the global space industry, said NASA CTO David Miller. According to him, voiced by him during an interview on the program "Science in Action" on the BBC, currently NASA is preparing for the implementation of the first ever manned mission to the seventh largest planet in the solar system. Miller recalled that the flight to the Red Planet is scheduled for 2030.
NASA technical department director David Miller said in an interview with the BBC that the agency is putting all its efforts into preparing an expedition to Mars and the subsequent colonization of the planet. According to him, Mars has all the necessary resources for this.
“I think that manned flights will take place in parallel with the development of remote sensing methods of space exploration. When we talk about plans for flights to Mars and a possible landing on the planet in the 2030s, it may seem that we are talking about the distant future. In fact, this is not so - these plans are already in the process of implementation. We have been present on Mars for several decades, since the 60s of the last century. Man is actively exploring this planet with the help of remotely controlled vehicles, and this research will continue. - told the specialist to the World Service BBC.
“Going beyond gravity is tricky and risky,” says a NASA official. - We are at the beginning of a long journey and it is important to understand this. We must carefully analyze the causes of technical failures and then move forward with these lessons.”
Miller noted the importance of precisely manned flights, citing the example of the Apollo mission, during which American astronauts were able to study incomparably more than the most successful Martian rovers (if, of course, they were there). Thus, it is the landing of a man on the Red Planet, according to a NASA representative, that could become a real breakthrough in the exploration of Mars.
“I believe that we cannot do without manned flights. There are three reasons for this,”Miller said. - If you recall the landing of the Apollo 17 lunar expedition, one of its heroes was geologist Harrison Schmitt, who in three days on the lunar surface covered about the same distance as, for example, the Opportunity apparatus, which did it in 10 years of successful work 20 km on the surface of Mars, and collected even more information. At the same time, Harrison Schmitt saw the lunar surface in the context of the entire amount of geological knowledge - we can say that the productivity of his work was incomparable with the work of the most successful robot."
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The specialist shared that NASA plans to partner with private companies to organize orbital excursions, which are necessary to financially support the Mars exploration project.