John Grunsfeld, the former astronaut who now heads NASA's Science Mission Directorate, thinks that traveling light could get people to Mars by the 2040's. Clara Moskowitz reports.
Last week NASA hailed the launch of its new Orion capsule as the first step toward sending people to Mars. But is a manned mission to the Red Planet really doable? 'I liken it to the 1920's, '30's, '40's when it was believed that Everest might be impossible to climb.' John Grunsfeld, the former astronaut who now heads NASA's Science Mission Directorate. We spoke at Cape Canaveral just before the Orion launch. 'Well, eventually it was climbed by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hilary. And they did this big siege approach where they had thousands of porters and they brought big camps and afternoon tea and all this kind of stuff. And that was kind of the Apollo approach to going to the moon and back safely in a decade. We brought all resources to bear. 'But modern exploration on Earth-polar exploration, Antarctic, climbing, even climbing Mount Everest-people do it in a very light fashion using technology, they're very creative and they take more risks in some cases. And I think that's going to be our path to Mars, a much leaner path and one where we are able to use technology to enable the way, rather than a big siege approach. 'And so I think it's very realistic. I think we could do it in the 2030's, certainly by the 2040's, with the national will and the interest. And I think it's our science missions that are providing that drive.' -Clara Moskowitz(The above text is a transcript of this podcast)
Entities 0 Name: NASA Count: 3 1 Name: John Grunsfeld Count: 2 2 Name: Orion Count: 2 3 Name: Science Mission Directorate Count: 2 4 Name: Clara Moskowitz Count: 2 5 Name: Edmund Hilary Count: 1 6 Name: Cape Canaveral Count: 1 7 Name: Red Planet Count: 1 8 Name: Tenzing Norgay Count: 1 9 Name: Mount Everest-people Count: 1 10 Name: moon Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1vTxhg3 Title: Launch of NASA's Orion deep-space capsule Description: Orion is NASA's next-generation spacecraft, and its goal is to take humans deeper into space than ever before with the ultimate goal of a mission to Mars in the 2030s. To achieve that, Orion needs to be able to reach very high speeds and withstand extreme temperatures and radiation levels.
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