Making Of Missions To Mars

NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in
the 2030s goals outlined in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and in the U.S.
National Space Policy, also issued in 2010.
Engineers and scientists around the country are working hard to develop the technologies
astronauts will use to one day live and work on Mars, and safely return home from the next giant
leap for humanity.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle commander, said he envisioned
becoming the first person to explore Mars when he checked in for astronaut training at
Houston's Johnson Space Center in 1980.
"We are farther down the path to sending humans to Mars than at any point in NASA's history,"
Bolden said Thursday (Sept. 17) during an event at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
that detailed NASA's manned Mars plans.
NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman and Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary
science division, also took part in the discussion, which was web casted live on NASA TV. So
did a number of NASA researchers, as well as Andy Weir, author of the sci-fi novel "The
Martian," which has been made into a movie starring Matt Damon that opens on Oct. 2 2015.

Newman cited the fact that astronauts recently grew (and ate) lettuce on the International Space
Station, as part of an experiment designed to better understand the production of food crops
away from Earth.
Furthermore, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has invited representatives from space
organizations around the world, including the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), to a
meeting in Washington next month, where they'll discuss how they can work together on the
journey to Mars, according to reports.
"Reaching the Mars orbit in first attempt was an amazing achievement and that too at such low
cost," Charles Elachi, director of JPL, told the Press Trust of India(India's answer to the
Associated Press). "I am very optimistic about the future in space collaboration," he said.
"Space is for everybody."
As a Stem student, I have a personal connection to the Mission To Mars. The Stem School
Chattanoogas introductory meeting was held at Hamilton Countys Educational Central Office.
At the meeting, the first thing shown was the video of NASA planning a mission to Mars. That
video was the inspiration for the kind of things we wanted to at STEM, and how we want to take
education to the next level.
Stem School Chattanooga has come a long way since that meeting. Its continually heading
towards the right direction, just like NASA and before we know it, we will create history by
putting boots on Mars.