Landing astronauts safely on Mars is one of the biggest technological hurdles for any future manned mission to the Red Planet, even more complicated than last year's daring rover touchdown.
Landing astronauts safely on Mars is one of the biggest technological hurdles for any future manned mission to the Red Planet, even more complicated than last year's daring rover touchdown.
NASA dazzled observers by landing the one-ton Curiosity rover on Mars in August in a high-speed operation using a sky crane and supersonic parachute, but experts say the task would be even more challenging with humans onboard.
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| Robert Braun |
"But it's really a baby step that we needed to take, on the way of one day walking on the Mars surface," he said at a conference in Washington on Tuesday. "
"The three-day meeting, which started Monday, has brought together NASA experts, university researchers and members of the aerospace industry for talks focused on exploring the neighbouring planet."
"Curiosity has been described as a small car," Braun said of the six-wheeled mobile lab that has been exploring Mars for the last nine months.
"What we are really talking about today is landing a two-storey house, and maybe landing that two-storey house next to another one that has been pre-positioned," he said.
Where Curiosity weighed one ton, engineers estimate a supply capsule to prepare for a manned landing would weigh somewhere around 40 tons.
Such a mission would require not only food, water and oxygen for the astronauts, but a vehicle powerful enough to get them back to their spaceship, which would likely remain in orbit.
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