Mars Missions Could Make Humanity a Multi-Planet Species, NASA Chief Says
In
order for humanity to survive into the distant future, we need to visit
and learn how to survive on other worlds, according to NASA chief
Charles Bolden. NASA is in the process of developing technologies that
are expected to help humans get to Mars and beyond. Landing astronauts
on Mars and even…
Mars Missions Could Make Humanity a Multi-Planet Species, NASA Chief Says
By by Miriam Kramer, Staff Writer
10 hours ago
This artist's concept of a future Mars mission shows astronauts near a lander on the Red Planet.
"If this species is to survive indefinitely, we need to become a
multi-planet species," Bolden said. "One reason we need to go to Mars is
so that we can learn a little bit about living on other planets ...
Mars is a steppingstone in the steppingstone approach to other solar
systems and other galaxies and things that people have always dreamed of
but frequently don't talk about." [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]
Ideally, the first crewed mission to Mars
will represent the culmination of many incremental steps — like NASA's
ambitious plan to retrieve an asteroid and park it near the moon — taken
to safely get humans to and from Mars, NASA officials have said.Under the space agency's current framework, NASA officials hope to launch humans to Mars by the 2030s after sending an astronaut crew to an asteroid by 2025.
"We, today, are Earth-reliant," Bolden said. "We're dependent on being on this planet. We are not a multi-planet species yet … Only multi-planet species survive for long periods of time."
In general, the architecture for a mission to Mars is not like the Apollo program that brought astronauts to the moon for the first time. The current plan could involve sending multiple spacecraft to the Mars system over the course of years, however, the plan to get to Mars is an evolving process, William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the agency's human exploration and operations mission directorate, said during the conference today.
"We're starting to take a different approach toward Mars than we have before," Gerstenmaier said. "Our classic [ideas for Mars] missions were more Apollo-style in a way — where we launched everything within a year and we sent the armada of spacecraft … toward Mars. I think we're going to do that maybe over a period of time, over a period of years and build more of an evolvable piece.
"It's not a single mission, but it really is the pioneering aspect,"
Gerstenmaier added. "Once that mental change starts … and you're looking
at it in the long term, then you invest in some things that might
actually take longer to go do, but they may be more sustainable."
Learning more about Mars also has tangible effects right now, Bolden
said. Understanding the Red Planet could also help scientists peer into
the past and future of Earth.
"Mars' formation and evolution are comparable to Earth’s and we know that at one time Mars had conditions suitable for life," Bolden wrote in a post on Space.com.
"What we learn about the Red Planet may tell us more about our own home
planet's history and future and help us answer a fundamental human
question — does life exist beyond Earth?"
Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://news.yahoo.com/mars-missions-could-humanity-multi-planet-species-nasa-150728815.html
As an intuitive I can tell you that I presently believe that humans basically have always been a multi-planet species. Likely there are thousands or more planets that humanoids have genetically engineered themselves to survive on, some better than others.
This planet is great when it doesn't have ice ages or meteors that hit earth like the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs that created the Gulf of Mexico. So, it is possible that there have been many sequential civilizations that evolved to space travel like us before. My thought is that we came from Mars and the Asteroid belt planet that was blown up by a thermonuclear war. The Soviets proved this in the 1970s when they sent a probe there. However, Christianity didn't want to hear this because it doesn't agree with our religion. However, maybe Noah wasn't on earth but on another planet and brought the animals to earth from the one that flooded.
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