With the President of the U.S. committed to expanding deep space exploration, the nation continues to advance on the Journey to Mars.
Last week, President Obama spoke about his “sense of wonder about our space program”. Early on in his presidency, the President visited NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As a part of his time there, he called for “our space program to explore more of the solar system”.
Click here to read the Presidents comments.
What do the current and upcoming steps looks like for NASA on this Journey to Mars?
Journey to Mars, Image Credit: NASA
We are currently in phase one of three on this journey. The current phase focuses on the research conducted on a laboratory that orbits Earth – the International Space Station. The next phase will involve regular missions with humans to cislunar space, and will be followed by phase three in which humans will travel to the red planet and orbit it.
The President also spoke about the “cooperation between government and private innovators” as being essential. NASA has a model called NextSTEP for public-private partnership that is currently being used for the development of human habitats for deep space.
NASA is also developing the evolvable rocket, Space Launch System, to power humans to Mars inside the new crew capsule, Orion. With continuing steps in the direction of sending humans to Mars, the reality of expanding human presence outside of Earth gets closer everyday.
Click here to read more about the Journey to Mars.