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Can We Afford 2020 Mars Trip?
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NASA’s 2020 Plan for Mars Makes the Old New Again
The Curiosity rover is just four months into its primary two-year mission on Mars, and already NASA is planning sequels. The Agency announced yesterday plans for a series of Martian missions that will culminate in 2020 with the launch of a new robotic science rover based largely on Curiosity’s design.
If its mission outline unfolds as planned, NASA could soon be juggling as many as seven Martian missions at once. Are the Agency’s lofty aims a bid to capitalize on Curiosity’s sudden rise to fame? Almost certainly. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. After the jump, Vintage Space’s Amy Shira Teitel delivers the smartest analysis so far on NASA’s renewed interest in the Red Planet.
Yesterday, NASA announced a bold new plan of exploration for the coming decade on Mars. It’s exciting. I love plans that include a methodical exploration of other worlds that will help answer the bigger questions out there, like why Mars developed into such a different world than the other inner bodies. But looking a little closer at what few details the agency’s released, it looks less like a concrete plan with a goal and more of a bid to capitalize on Curiosity’s unexpected fame. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just sort of an odd thing. READMOREHERE
