The planet Mars is a world of breathtaking scenery, with spectacular mountains three times
as tall as Mount Everest, canyons three times as deep and five times as long as the Grand
canyon, vast ice fields, and thousands of kilometers of mysterious dry riverbeds.
Its unexplored surface may hold unimagined riches and resources for future humanity, as
well as answers to some of the deepest philosophical questions that thinking men and women
have pondered for millenia. Moreover, Mars may someday provide a home for a dynamic
new branch of human civilization, a new frontier, whose settlement and growth will provide
an engine of progress for all humanity for generations to come. But all that Mars
holds will forever remain beyond our grasp unless and until men and women walk its rugged
landscapes.
It can be said that further exploration and possible colonization for Mars should be the job of the next generation. However, the technology of today is more than adequate to make more trips to Mars and conduct proper testing and exploration. Mars can be reached through the use of boosters similar to those used to help the astronauts reach the moon.
Preliminary mission overviews involve creating huge ships assembled in orbit around the earth, carrying huge pay loads of propellant and costing hundreds of billions of dollars. However, using today's technology and a little common sense, a round trip to Mars can be planned and executed for low money and just a little ingenuity. In fact, if some of the needed supplies can be produced on Mars, then the plan is just that much simpler.
To circumvent these high costs and wasting of valuable time, the "Mars Direct" trip was developed by a group of Martin Marietta Astronautics scientists in Denver. The "Mars Direct" plan means just what it says. This proposed, direct trip to Mars would get a spaceship there twenty years earlier than any other proposed plan to get to the "Red Planet." The hardware would cost an approximated 20 billion dollars and each successive mission another 2 billion. However, this large sum of money would only constitute 7 percent of the military/civilian space budget when spanned over 10 years. Also, like Appollo in the 1960's, this spending of large amounts of money on technology and science might just contribute to the largest economic growth since Apollo, which floundered an excess of 70 billion dollars into similar areas of the economy.
"Mars Direct" might be seen unfeasible because scientists will say that the mass of such a space ship would be too excessive to launch from earth and travel the round trip because the propellant pay load would be too heavy. However, the propellant might just be able to be found on Mars. Here's how the "Mars Direct" plan would look:
