Space experts worry that the United States does not reach Mars by 2030



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The United States promised to send the first humans to Mars by the 2030s, but experts and space lawmakers have expressed concern that poor planning and lack of funds will delay these plans. President Donald Trump has promised to send Americans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, building a lunar bridge to test the technology and spacecraft that will transport humans to Mars. At a hearing in Washington, Sen. Bill Nelson said that the White House's decision to return to the moon – a program that former President Barack Obama has stopped to focus on Mars – could do move back the whole process

. "I do not want to steal NASA's budget from what is the goal, and the goal is to get to Mars with humans," said Nelson, a Florida Democrat, home to Cape Canaveral. and Kennedy Space Center. "Do these missions help us reach our goal of bringing humans to Mars?" He asked. In 2009, an independent panel of experts known as the Augustine Commission warned that NASA's resources were not meeting its ambitious goals. With an annual budget of about $ 18 billion, NASA would need $ 3 billion more per year to get to Mars, she discovered.

NASA officials said less, using only increases based on inflation in the budget. And National Academies of Science have calculated that if NASA's budget continued on its current path, "forget the scenario of arriving in March in the 2030s. It would take us until 2050," added Nelson. "I do not think we want to wait so long."
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– Global partners involved –
In 2017, NASA's congressional authorization bill asked NASA to define and provide Congress with a step-by-step plan to reach Mars. "We do not have this road map yet, it is seven months late," Nelson said. "What gives? Let's see the program to go to Mars and see where it all fits." Chris Carberry, managing director of Explore Mars, said at a hearing that international and private partnerships could help the United States make Mars more accessible.

"Our international partners want us to lead." "But they have concerns that we continue to change direction, they are not sure we will follow the direction." More so, aerospace experts have identified a dozen technologies according to which "we must start working immediately if we hope to land humans on Mars in the 2030s," adds Carberry [19659004]. the difficult entry on Mars and land softly, as well as the ability to lift people from the surface and return to Earth. Carberry says, "We have to start working on them now." Relying on bipartisan support from NASA, he sees among legislators, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican who heads the Senate Subcommittee on the subject. space, said He hopes NASA 's next funding bill will lay out a longer – term vision, rather than going from year to year. "This next authorization from NASA, the hope is that it will go further and be bolder in its aspirations." Cruz then asked Peggy Whitson, NASA's retired astronaut, who has spent an American record of 665 days in space, to get an idea of ​​what is needed for the future: "The thing the more important is the constancy of purpose ". have a vision that lasts more than one administration. We must have a budget line that will support those goals and objectives that we are trying to achieve. "

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