It turns out that landing humans on Mars may take a bit more time and money than NASA had originally anticipated.
According to the program’s chief scientist, roughly five additional years of medical research aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will be required before they think about sending an astronaut to the Red Planet, entailing billions in additional funds beyond the previously projected budget.
A presidential panel charged with reviewing the ISS project “” a ten year, $100 billion dollar collaborative effort of 16 countries “” is to deliver the details of their findings to the president this week, with the reports expected to be made public by the end of the month.
The panel also reported that the program known as Constellation “” an in-the-works project that is to be charged with exploring the deeper reaches of our solar system after the ISS is retired “” is likely to experience a budget shortfall of roughly $3 billion a year if additional funds are not appropriated.
NASA currently has an annual budget of $18 billion.
“NASA needs the ISS,” contended Julie Robinson, a scientist for the program. “A six-month stay on the space station is going to be the best analog we’re ever going to have for a six-month microgravity transit to Mars in the future.”
Robinson says that medical researchers need to utilize the space station until at least 2020 for researching the effects of and possible treatments for such space-related health complications as radiation exposure and loss of bone density.
NASA has already committed to investing $2.5 billion a year in the space station through 2015.
During public hearings, members of the Human Space Flight Plans Committee also argued that attempting to dissolve the program a mere five years after its completion would likely ruffle the feathers of the project’s co-participants like Canada, Japan, Russia and the European Union who have also dished out billions in contributions.
Sally Ride, chair of the subcommittee and iconic former astronaut, reported that her group had encountered nearly ubiquitous support for maintaining and enlarging the ISS program beyond 2016.
“We didn’t start off with that perspective,” she said. “We don’t think that the deorbit of ISS in 2016 makes much sense.”
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