Bridenstine Says NASA Plans Human Missions On Mars In 2030

WASHINGTON - NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said on July 15 that, as NASA moves forward with its plans to return humans to the moon by 2024, it will not rule out a first human mission to Mars as soon as the 2033.
Bridenstine's comments, near the end of a 45-minute briefing session with reporters on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the new Artemis program, are the latest sign of a renewed emphasis on human missions to Mars as a long-term goal for the agency in recent weeks.
"We are working right now, in fact, to put together a comprehensive plan on how to carry out a mission to Mars using the technologies that we will be testing on the Moon," he said when asked when a date for a first human mission was possible to Mars could be under NASA's current exploration plan. "I'm not willing to rule out 2033 at all."
For several years, proponents of Mars exploration have proposed human missions to Mars, either to orbit the planet or land on its surface, in 2033, citing a particularly favorable trajectory available that year. Those advocates have included Representative Ed. Perlmutter (D-Colo.), who frequently brings a bumper sticker of "Mars 2033" to the House of Representatives Scientific Committee hearings.
However, a report prepared by the Institute of Science and Technology Policy (STPI), as requested by Congress at the 2017 NASA authorization act, concluded that a human mission to Mars in 2033 was not possible using the current architecture of NASA. "We discovered that even without budget constraints, an orbital mission on Mars 2033 cannot be realistically programmed according to NASA's current and notional plan," the STPI concluded in the report, published in April after being presented to Congress early on.
Bridenstine, in his comments, seemed to reject aspects of the STPI report. "I think there were assumptions in that report that maybe not everyone agrees," he said, such as the length of stays on the surface. The STPI report, however, studied only Mars orbital missions for 2033 or later in the decade.
"I think there are alternatives out there that allow" a mission to Mars in 2033, he said. "I'm not saying that's on the agenda, what I'm saying is that NASA is watching, since we've accelerated our way to the moon, how does that speed our way to Mars? We're looking at those trades and seeing what it can be achieved. "
Bridenstine's comments were the strongest signal to date that NASA maintains its commitment to human missions to Mars as soon as possible, even as it pushes to accelerate the human return to the moon by 2024. While Bridenstine and in general, the agency said the moon was a "test ground" for missions to Mars, that emphasis has grown since the June 7 tweet of President Trump criticizing NASA for talking about going to the moon. "They should focus on the much bigger things we're doing, including Mars," he wrote.
Both NASA and White House officials interpreted that tweet meant that NASA's short-term focus on returning humans to the Moon should not overwhelm the long-term goal of humans to Mars. "I do not think we always do a good job of talking about the broader vision this is part of," said Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council, at a conference a day after the president's tweet. "What he's doing is going back and expressing, I think, a very understandable impatience with the time it takes all of that, and sometimes we miss the picture."
Bridenstine said in a July 12 interview with C-SPAN that he had spoken to the president from that tweet. "I talked to the president a few weeks ago and he told me clearly: 'I know you have to go to the moon to get to Mars, but talk about Mars,'" he said, noting that the president called. Mars is a "generational achievement that will capture the imagination" of the public. "He's absolutely right, so let's keep talking about why we're going to the Moon: it's the test ground for the mission to Mars."
In the teleconference with the July 15 media, Bridenstine said he spoke for the last time with the president about three weeks ago, and with Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the National Space Council, a week before two.
"The president and the vice president are very committed to going to the moon in order to get to Mars. We are all aligned with that, "he said.

By: Preeti Narula
Content: https://spacenews.com/bridenstine-says-nasa-planning-for-human-mars-missions-in-2030s/