After humans successfully landed on the moon in 1969, many expected a trip to Mars would be close behind. Seeing the first humans walk on the moon was indeed exciting, but over time both public interest and funding for space missions were slashed and dreams of visiting the Red Planet dimmed. While NASA has launched some exciting missions in recent decades, it’s been more than half a century since Apollo 11 put a man on the moon and humans still haven’t ventured beyond our lunar neighbor.
That may soon change, however. If everything — including politics, budgets and technology — lines up just right, humans may land on Mars in the 2030s. The good news about the long wait is that we now have the technology to make such a trip safer than it would have been decades ago. However, there are still many details to work out: choosing the best kind of fuel, figuring out how the long periods of low gravity will affect humans, and timing everything correctly so that we hit Mars when it’s closest to Earth.
