NASA has the ability to send people to Mars, but what stopped them?

In 20 14, the Mars One Institute in the Netherlands initially selected 1058 people from 200,000 people who applied for the second phase of training to immigrate to Mars, and selected 24 volunteers from them to go to Mars in batches in 2024.

If this project can really be implemented, it will be hailed as another milestone in human exploration and migration to Mars. Unfortunately, it has been controversial, and there has been no progress since then, so it looks more like someone else's research institute. I just want to play for a while.

But if they really want to play like this in 2024, can they really play?

With the space strength of the Netherlands, it is estimated that it will not work, but the United States is likely to be able to.

In the late 1960s, the United States successfully landed on the moon. For landing on Mars, although the distance has become much longer and the landing difficulty has increased, the basic landing method is still similar, but generally only a little more fuel, and astronauts need more food reserves.

But why didn't the United States go all out and even land on Mars after landing on the moon?

Even though there was a great failure rate when landing on Mars, now NASA is playing on Mars just like playing on the moon. When manned with manned spacecraft, the success rate is bound to be much higher than that of unmanned spacecraft. Why didn't the United States land on Mars?

As we know, it takes 26 months for the earth people to explore Mars, which means that astronauts must live on the long space journey and Mars for at least 26 months.

After all, it is not the International Space Station, and the subsequent replenishment and living space are severely compressed. Even people with amazing endurance may be unbearable. In other words, the risk of human security is too great, unless there are well-trained people willing to take a one-way ticket.

But a humanitarian problem is that even if many people in the world really want to take a one-way ticket to Mars, NASA dare not do so, because obviously, a living person will die.

After all, this is a highly controversial issue. Whether the one-way trip to Mars is 1 0,000% voluntary or not, as long as NASA sends people there, 1 0,000% will attract condemnation, and this reputation and NASA's landmark breakthrough in sending humans to Mars for the first time will have indelible black spots. At the same time, this breakthrough may bring to NASA, which is likely to be condemnation. So there is no need to send people to Mars to die.

But what if this trip to Mars is not a one-way ticket? In fact, we can still refer to America's feat of manned landing on the moon. In other words, with the existing space technology in the United States, it should be possible to require astronauts to return to Earth after going.

If it is manned space flight, it will be difficult to ensure that the internal space of the spacecraft is large enough and there is a stable environment suitable for human life, and its technical requirements and costs will increase sharply.

This actually means that if NASA wants to land a man on Mars, then the biggest problem they face is the funding problem.

The United States is unique in the space field, and it is not like when the Soviet Union existed.

Although Jim Breeden, director of NASA, once said that he hoped to send astronauts to Mars in 2033, many experts thought it was impossible, because the cost of manned landing on Mars was no less than that of manned landing on the moon in the last century.

In the cold war era, they can win the first place in the world at the cost of chicken blood. After all, people are willing and taxpayers are willing, but it's different now. The space strength of the United States is recognized as the world leader, and the people have no psychological basis to surpass their opponents. Naturally, they won't agree to spend more money to play such games.

Of course, if China's proposal of manned landing on Mars in a short time stimulated them, or that there are Martians on Mars or other important discoveries that need to be made in person, then maybe NASA's manned landing on Mars will start soon.