Many of the NASA scientists and engineers focused on sending humans to Mars in the 2030s, the Red Planet is just a step on a bigger journey to places like Jupiter, Neptune, and even interstellar space. Sending humans much farther than Mars will require scientific breakthroughs we cannot anticipate, but it is still worth researching right now, argues Ron Litchford, who oversees NASA’s propulsion portfolio as a technologist in the Space Technology Mission Directorate. “It’s not just dreaming,” he says. “Having a vision gives you some guidance and helps inform how to invest today. 🤗 While the technical challenges of a human Mars mission are real, there is nevertheless a clarity to what it will require. For example, we do not know yet what type of propulsion we will actually use, but that is partly because we can probably do it with a number of technologies the space agency is already working on. “Between chemical, nuclear thermal, solar electric, and maybe even nuclear electr...
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