It's an unmanned spacecraft. We get a chance to send them every two years. Next year, I think only Insight headed for the surface. It's purely geological. Mars One have talked about sending a spacecraft there in the near future but so far it is only talk and studies, and they probably won't have the funding - it would be unmanned anyway.
The next big date for Mars is probably 2020 when both the ESA with ExoMars and NASA with Curiosity's successor will be sending rovers to land on the surface.
As for humans - well there's a lot of talk and ideas - but no concrete plans. I think myself that it makes more sense to go back to the Moon first, or NEAs. NASA also plan to start with missions closer to Earth first, with their asteroid retrieval missions.
The problem is, we have no experience at all of sending humans on long interplanetary flights. We haven't yet sent any human into space for more than a few months without a resupply mission from Earth - certainly nobody has been in space for as long as a year without resupply. And always in low Earth orbit since Apollo. And from time to time things go wrong in the ISS and they need replacements from Earth. It's not designed as an interplanetary spacecraft anyway - the whole thing is designed about the idea that you have frequent resupply from Earth and many things would need to be tested and rethought before you could make a viable interplanetary mission.
I think myself that we don't just need a few asteroid retrieval missions of a few months, but to actually have multi- year missions closer to Earth with no resupply from Earth at all, before we try going further afield. The motivation for that would be to reduce the cost. A mission to the Moon or to the lunar L2 that only needs to be resupplied every two or three years would cost vastly less than one that needs to be resupplied every few months like the ISS. And there's lots of great interest to learn about the Moon.
So - we would surely do that if we could do it. If you could resupply the ISS only every two years it would cost a small fraction of what it currently does. Since we don't do that - that shows clearly I think that we are not yet ready for interplanetary flight.
When we do, then the obvious thing is to go to Mars orbit rather than its surface. Humans could be of great value there able to control exploring robots anywhere on the surface of Mars. And far safer for them, and most important, there's no risk of them introducing Earth life to the planet - since Mars is of most interest of all for search for life (ancient or even present day and independently evolved) - then the very last thing we want to do is to go there and just discover life that we brought there ourselves. So until we know a whole lot more about it, I can't myself see human missions to the surface passing requirements of planetary protoection. Putting my own view there - some people have said they are optimistic that a way can be found to land humans on Mars consistent with planetary protection, but nobody has given any details of how that would work yet - and I find it a bit hard to see how especially a hard landing on the surface could be consistent with keeping it free from Earth life which everyone agrees is a prime requirement of planetary protection. Especially given that there are many ideas for ways that there might possibly be habitats on the surface of Mars that would need to be checked out. Anyway time will tell there.
The other possibility is that scientists say that we already know so much about Mars and whether it has life or not, and about the consequences of introducing Earth life, that they can say with assurance that it doesn't matter if we introduce Earth life to it. I.e. that they can declare an "end to the scientific preliminary exploration phase". But hard to see that happening in less than a few decades at least, given how complex we now realize the planet is. And - the great hope of course is that we find native Mars life, and if it is even a microbe, but fundamentally different biochemistry - maybe even an early form of life that replicates only imperfectly - then that would make humans on the surface very problematical and need great deal of thought and care.
But humans safely in orbit around Mars - if done carefully, e.g. don't use aerobraking, and make sure no chance of them crashing into Mars and of course don't dispose of human wastes into the Mars atmosphere etc - then - that could be done. Also humans to the Mars moons like Deimos. Could be a very exciting mission once we are ready for interplanetary flight. Some say "how frustrating to go all that way and not land on the planet" - but I think the general public would understand if explained properly. After all the Russians in Antarctica still haven't sent a submarine into Lake Vostock - gone all the way to within a few meters of the surface - even created an artificial geyser from the lake. Would be easy to send a submarine down to explore it - but we don't yet have the technology to sterilize it sufficiently to do that. So if we need to be as careful as that about a lake below the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet - how much more careful should we be about another planet?
The next big date for Mars is probably 2020 when both the ESA with ExoMars and NASA with Curiosity's successor will be sending rovers to land on the surface.
As for humans - well there's a lot of talk and ideas - but no concrete plans. I think myself that it makes more sense to go back to the Moon first, or NEAs. NASA also plan to start with missions closer to Earth first, with their asteroid retrieval missions.
The problem is, we have no experience at all of sending humans on long interplanetary flights. We haven't yet sent any human into space for more than a few months without a resupply mission from Earth - certainly nobody has been in space for as long as a year without resupply. And always in low Earth orbit since Apollo. And from time to time things go wrong in the ISS and they need replacements from Earth. It's not designed as an interplanetary spacecraft anyway - the whole thing is designed about the idea that you have frequent resupply from Earth and many things would need to be tested and rethought before you could make a viable interplanetary mission.
I think myself that we don't just need a few asteroid retrieval missions of a few months, but to actually have multi- year missions closer to Earth with no resupply from Earth at all, before we try going further afield. The motivation for that would be to reduce the cost. A mission to the Moon or to the lunar L2 that only needs to be resupplied every two or three years would cost vastly less than one that needs to be resupplied every few months like the ISS. And there's lots of great interest to learn about the Moon.
So - we would surely do that if we could do it. If you could resupply the ISS only every two years it would cost a small fraction of what it currently does. Since we don't do that - that shows clearly I think that we are not yet ready for interplanetary flight.
When we do, then the obvious thing is to go to Mars orbit rather than its surface. Humans could be of great value there able to control exploring robots anywhere on the surface of Mars. And far safer for them, and most important, there's no risk of them introducing Earth life to the planet - since Mars is of most interest of all for search for life (ancient or even present day and independently evolved) - then the very last thing we want to do is to go there and just discover life that we brought there ourselves. So until we know a whole lot more about it, I can't myself see human missions to the surface passing requirements of planetary protoection. Putting my own view there - some people have said they are optimistic that a way can be found to land humans on Mars consistent with planetary protection, but nobody has given any details of how that would work yet - and I find it a bit hard to see how especially a hard landing on the surface could be consistent with keeping it free from Earth life which everyone agrees is a prime requirement of planetary protection. Especially given that there are many ideas for ways that there might possibly be habitats on the surface of Mars that would need to be checked out. Anyway time will tell there.
The other possibility is that scientists say that we already know so much about Mars and whether it has life or not, and about the consequences of introducing Earth life, that they can say with assurance that it doesn't matter if we introduce Earth life to it. I.e. that they can declare an "end to the scientific preliminary exploration phase". But hard to see that happening in less than a few decades at least, given how complex we now realize the planet is. And - the great hope of course is that we find native Mars life, and if it is even a microbe, but fundamentally different biochemistry - maybe even an early form of life that replicates only imperfectly - then that would make humans on the surface very problematical and need great deal of thought and care.
But humans safely in orbit around Mars - if done carefully, e.g. don't use aerobraking, and make sure no chance of them crashing into Mars and of course don't dispose of human wastes into the Mars atmosphere etc - then - that could be done. Also humans to the Mars moons like Deimos. Could be a very exciting mission once we are ready for interplanetary flight. Some say "how frustrating to go all that way and not land on the planet" - but I think the general public would understand if explained properly. After all the Russians in Antarctica still haven't sent a submarine into Lake Vostock - gone all the way to within a few meters of the surface - even created an artificial geyser from the lake. Would be easy to send a submarine down to explore it - but we don't yet have the technology to sterilize it sufficiently to do that. So if we need to be as careful as that about a lake below the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet - how much more careful should we be about another planet?
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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