Nasa says not enough funding to land humans on Mars
15 Jul 2017
Nasa has announced it does not have the funds to land humans on Mars.
The space agency has discussed plans for landing people on the red planet for a while now, but it did not look possible right now.
According to commentators, while it might still be able to fly astronauts to Mars, entry and landing was an entirely different matter.
''I can't put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is... at the budget levels we described, this roughly two percent increase, we don't have the surface systems available for Mars,'' said William Gerstenmaier, Nasa's chief of human spaceflight, this week, Ars Technica reported.
''And that entry, descent, and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars.''
The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, which were expected to make landing on Mars at a future date possible, had been expensive to build.
Consequently, Nasa had not even been able to start designing the vehicles capable of landing on Mars or ascend from the planet's surface.
Private companies, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, were also considering Mars landing missions, would not have the same financial constraints that were holding Nasa back.