NASA Scientist Answers 'Have Humans Ever Visited Mars?'

Everyone has thought at least once that have humans ever been to Mars? NASA Scientist, Mars Expert, Dr. Mitch Schulte, answers the question.

Dr. Schulte said that humans have not been to Mars in person, but NASA has sent plenty of spacecraft there in the past.

He said, "In fact, we have two operating rovers on the surface of Mars right now. These rovers are really instrumental in telling us what Mars is like in terms of the weather, the surface conditions, how cold it gets. So when we do want to send humans to Mars, we'll know a lot more than we would have otherwise. With our previous missions through a robotic spacecraft, we've learned a lot about how to land on Mars, not only in terms of getting spacecraft to the surface, but the conditions that come with landing on Mars."

NASA Mars

So one might wonder, why haven't humans been to mars? Dr. Schulte said, "Well, first of all, it's really far away, and so building the technology to be able to travel that long distance and protect the crews from the space environment and making sure that they can survive through the long journey is really important, so we're still working on that process. Artemis will help us with that as we send humans back to the Moon, which we've done previously but haven't been to in quite some time."

Artemis Program is the precursor to the man on Mars project.

NASA

He continued, "This will also help us then develop that technology that we're going to need to get humans to the surface of Mars and then back again. Meanwhile, while they're on the surface of Mars, they're going to need to be able to survive there for some time while they do their work. We have an experiment on the Perseverance rover, which is actually collecting carbon dioxide out of Mars' very thin atmosphere and converting that into oxygen. So not only will the astronauts be able to use this oxygen to breathe, but they can also use it for rocket fuel so that they can get back off the surface."

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