A manned mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction, engineering and scientific proposals throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. The plans comprise proposals not only to land on but in the end for settling on and terraforming Mars, while exploiting its moons Phobos and Deimos.
Preliminary work for missions has been undertaken since the 1950s, with planned missions typically taking place 10 to 30 years in the future. The list of manned Mars mission plans in the 20th century shows the various mission proposals that have been put forth by multiple organizations and space agencies in this field of space exploration.
In 2010, a bill was signed in the United States discontinuing plans for a manned mission to the Moon by 2020, and instead, authorizing manned missions to an asteroid in 2025 and to the planet Mars by the 2030s.
In 2012, a private project named Mars One was announced, aiming to establish a settlement on Mars in 2023.
Read more about Manned Mission To Mars: Challenges, 20th Century Proposals, Preparedness, Mars Analogs, Technologies
Famous quotes containing the words mission and/or mars:
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“It makes us, or it mars us, think on that,
And fix most firm thy resolution.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)