A workshop attended by representatives from different governments, academic institutions, and industry concluded that sending manned space missions to Mars is possible if there is enough money.
The group of experts concluded that Mars could be explored by man in the 2030s, provided that funding for this effort will be restored to pre-sequestration allocation. The dream of sending a manned mission to Mars should be an international goal and funding and support are needed especially from the private sector.
Chris Carberry, executive director of the Explore Mars Inc., the organization which initiated the Affording Mars workshop, told SPACE.com, "To be able to make it feasible and affordable, you need a sustainable budget. You need a budget that is consistent, that you can predict from year to year and that doesn't get canceled in the next administration."
The workshop, which was also co-hosted by the American Astronautical Society, hinges their plan to go to Mars to the possibility of using NASA's deep space crew capsule, called the Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle and the heavy-lifting rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS). Both Orion and SLS are being developed as of this writing and Orion is scheduled to do an unmanned test flight towards the end of the year.
The workshop which was held in December 2013 included participants from different organizations such as Orbital Sciences Corp, Boeing, and NASA. The workshop was able to produce a six-point agreement regarding the first manned mission to Mars: human exploration in Mars could be done by 2013; Mars exploration should be a priority project for the next two to three decades, the use of the International Space Station is imperative for the success of the project, among others.
However, with current budget, sending a manned mission to Mars might be near impossible.
"We're not far off from what we need," Carberry said in SPACE.com. "We just need to get back into a reasonable budget, which we're not in right now."
