Mars is perhaps the next great scientific challenge of our time. We are just on the cusp of the point of human history where the goal of humans landing on Mars is becoming a practical reality. It is a goal which fires the imagination. It seems like the next natural progression in science and technology from the manned missions to the moon which occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It has been speculated that the leap in technology required to reach mars is actually less than what was required to reach the moon when that mission was first contemplated in the early 1950s around the time of the great speech of President John F. Kennedy when he said “We choose to go to the moon.” Presidents Obama and Trump have both directed funding towards manned missions to Mars and expressed strong interests in the project. There is broad based political support for the mission. Historically political will and the funding for NASA which flows from that have in fact been the most difficult problems for the development of space exploration.
