• Question: When do you think human life will be able to travel to mars?

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      Asked by anon-287527 on 8 Mar 2021.
      • Photo: Jesko Koehnke

        Jesko Koehnke answered on 8 Mar 2021: last edited 18 Mar 2021 6:03 pm

        We are able to do that now, we just lack the will to do it. It would be incredibly expensive, and it would probably be a one-way trip.

      • Photo: Andrew Parrott

        Andrew Parrott answered on 9 Mar 2021:

        I think a lot of the technology needed exists already – Nasa recently landed a large rover on Mars (Perseverance). But to land humans on Mars would currently be really expensive, so I can’t see it happening soon. Then there is the question of do we need to be able to bring them back again?

      • Photo: Martin McCoustra

        Martin McCoustra answered on 9 Mar 2021:

        Really the question is not when but should we. Robot devices can tell us a lot about Mars but people are better in general at studying the environment. We’re much more flexible. I suspect that we’ll be looking at human travel to Mars in the next 10 to 20 years. But we need to establish a more permanent base somewhere near the Moon before that to make it easier to get to Mars.

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