As the world commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, the United States is preparing to send humans back by 2020 through Project Constellation. Moon walker Buzz Aldrin is now calling for a Mars shot by 2031, a proposal that I support and find reasonable.
The first reason that I support a 2031 Mars shot is that, unlike NASA’s current policy with regards to Project Constellation, this sets a time frame by which to aim for the Red Planet. “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” is a nice catch phrase and slogan, but that’s currently NASA’s only official “timetable” for going to Mars, and that it will be sometime in the future after returning to the Moon. Assigning a date over 10 years after we should have made a return to the Moon is a reasonable leap in technology, provided the flow of funding remains steady or is even increased for NASA.
I fully believe that Earth’s future is directly tied to the Moon and how we choose to exploit its resources for terrestrial use, but Mars is integral to humanity’s future, and as society is faced with ever greater dangers having a “Plan B” will be crucial. Not to mention that the more we explore Mars the more it has been found to have had a wetter history, perhaps not unlike the Earth’s early history, providing key clues to the evolution of planets and potentially life in the universe.
Not interested in making a direct jump from the Moon to Mars? There are intermediary steps, and NASA shouldn’t get caught up in the order of their timetable slogan. It may in fact be more practical, not to mention more logical, to send astronauts to a near earth asteroid beyond the orbit of the Moon to test deep space technologies and techniques. While NASA is planning on keeping astronauts on the Moon for up to 6 months at a time, it pales in comparison to the 24 month mission to Mars. An 8 or 10 month mission to a near Earth asteroid would not only test out key technology but would train astronauts and ground control in the psychology of deep space flight, which is not likely to be anywhere near as cheery as Star Trek.
2031 doesn’t have to be the set date, but NASA needs one. It would also be prudent to investigate a mission to a near Earth asteroid, there are plenty of targets to choose from!