Man will land on Mars in 2037, says NASA official
T.S. Subramanian and Y. Mallikarjun
A series of planned lunar missions comes into focus at
International Astronautical Congress
Hyderabad: Michael Griffin, Administrator, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), U.S., is convinced that the first
human being will land on Mars in 2037. When this conference meets
in 2057, I am convinced that we will be able to celebrate the 20th
anniversary of the first human landing on Mars
he asserted at the
International Astronautical Congress near here on Monday.
A series of lunar missions planned by Japan, China, Russia, the
U.S. and India and later missions of land rovers and human beings
to Mars came sharply into focus at the IAC plenary, when the heads
of top national space agencies gathered to answer questions from
delegates.
While Japan launched a two-tonne spacecraft called Selene to the
moon by the middle of this month and is planning a series of lunar
missions, China will launch a spacecraft to the moon by the end of
this year. Our lunar spacecraft has been transported to the launch
site. If everything goes well, it will be launched by the end of
this year, said Sun Laiyan, Administrator, China National Space
Administration (CNSA).
One step beyond ISS
Dr. Griffin said the next step in space exploration would be one
step beyond the International Space Station (ISS), where 15
partners of the U.S. were engaged in building a platform for
humanity above the earths atmosphere.
We will learn from that how to go beyond first back to the
moon and stay there for a substantial length of time and then on to
Mars. In the process, we will build a civilisation for tomorrow and
after that, he declared.
Dr. Laiyan revealed that China had planned its missions to the moon
in three stages: orbiting, roving and returning. China had no
plans to send a man to the moon. But Dr. Laiyan was confident that
hopefully, the objective would be fulfilled later.
Keiji Tachikawa, president, Japanese Space Exploration Agency,
believed that moon was no longer a place to visit but should be
considered for human inhabitation and exploitation of its mineral
resources. In the wake of the Selene mission, Dr. Tachikawa said,
Japan would send a series of spacecraft to the moon to explore it
further.
Our future programme in human space flight, said Anatoly N.
Pernimov, Head, Federal Space Agency, Russia, will be in three
major steps.
The first step up to 2015 would mark Russia integrating its segment
into the ISS and setting up a multi-purpose laboratory there.
Between 2016 and 2025, Russia would continue to integrate its
complex in the ISS and build up a space crew. From 2026 to 2040,
Gen. Pernimov said Russia would develop near-earth space
infrastructure, which would form the basis for human flights to the
moon and Mars.
ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair said the government had not yet taken
any decision to send an Indian into space.
We are assessing the technologies to be developed, the facilities
needed and the Indian scientific community wanted to go its own
way on sending an Indian into space. This would take eight years.
Prof. U.R. Rao, former ISRO chairman, moderated the plenary.
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