Are we ever going to send humans to Mars?
108373
They already did, silly goose. Yes, they probably will. Maybe next year they'll send somebody.
215996
Who's this "we"? All 6.6 billion of us? We'd never be able to put together all the needed resources, starting with 7 million 1000-passenger space liners and the necessary 100 trillion tons or so of propellant.\nOK, so we scale down a bit. First, 99.9999% of us volunteer to stay here and die; please step forward. (BTW, this might actually be doable, sending 7000 people to build sealed dwellings and colonize mars, but it would still be a huger project than we have ever undertaken.) \n.... OK, nobody stepped forward, so we try plan b; select a few of our fittest to go; the scientists, artists, guys with guns, hairdressers, telephone sanitizers, etc. plus the, um, necessary biological counterparts to ensure continuation of the species, who must for that reason be chosen for their, ah, sexual attractiveness...\nAnyone remember Doctor Strangelove?
491458
I think that we're going to be responsible for putting life on other planets, Mars and the Moon so far.  Because...before there was humans there were tiny things called bacteria.  When we walked on the moon I'm sure we transfered some onto the rocks and it will evolve, when we put the rover on mars, I'm sure there were probably some germs that transfered onto the mars rocks and they will evolve too...it will take lots of time and will not happen in our lifetime, but eventually...it will
484356
Over the years we've sent quite a few probes - both orbiters and landers - to Mars.  So far we have seen zero signs of intelligent life, and nothing definitive about simple life, either.\n\nWhat we have seen that excites us is signs of water.  And from what we know about biochemistry, it may be pretty easy for simple life forms to develop in the presence of water.  Some of the probes that have landed on Mars have looked for organic compounds - the building blocks of life.  So far they haven't found anything like that - but that doesn't mean they're not there!\n\nI think the best way to investigate if there's life on Mars would be to send humans there to to really good tests.  Hopefully that will happen in the next 15 or 20 years.
89493
No, I do not think we should stop manned space flights.\n\nThere is an element to exploration that requires a human be involved.  You just cant get the full experience from robot transmitting data millions of miles back home as you can by standing on the surface of another world.\n\nPart of exploration means taking risks.\nManned space missions may be more expensive and more dangerous than robotic landers or space probes, but it is necesary to get a better picture of out place in the universe.\n\nI am not saying I am against probes through.  Some places are not yet practicle to send people.  For instance, sending a human out to Pluto would be extraordinarily difficult and ungodly epensive, so instead, NASA sends a probe.\nWe are slowly working our way up to sending humans to Mars, we arent quite there yet, so in the mean time, the Martian rovers are working great.
967621
Well, you are correct in that sittin' around will end in our collective lifes' destruction.  And attempts at proving life beyond Earth are ongoing.  Many of the missions to Mars are currently trying to prove that (among other things).  SETI is also an attempt to see or hear if anything is out there.  But that's a shot in the dark (har, har, de har har).\n\nThere are some significant steps being made to make spacecraft that can go "fast".  VASMIR (plasma rocket) among other things.\n\nThe two technologies that will drive us into the next level of abilities are quantum and nano technology.  Those will have significant impact on everything we build and contemplate.\n\nEventually our sun will get hotter, that could boil off our oceans (way before the sun bloats).  The Earths core could also cool enough that our magnetic field dissappears.  This would cause our atomosphere to slowly whisp away.\n\nBeing able to live in more hostile environments with nearly 100% recycling ability is our greatest challenge.  WIth that, we can start making our way out of this solar system and on to the next.\n\nWrite me for more discussion.  Fa shizzle.
356639
I hope so...\n\nI would like to imagine a future of space travel for the human race.\n\nBut I have no expereince in the field to offer suggestions.
109827
I think "plan" is an awfully strong word to use for something that is at present only a distant prospect;  it would be akin to someone in Galileo's time saying humanity "plans" to go the moon someday.\n\nTo answer your question, I would relocate in a heartbeat, solely for the adventure of it.  However, I think such a thing is unlikely to ever come to pass, because it doesn't make economic sense.  Just exactly what resources are we expecting to get from Mars?  Not fossil fuels;  you need life to create the fossils to get that.  The principle resource that Mars offers is space.  But even having a whole other planet of breathing room doesn't offer much advantage.   Let's say that the Earth is overcrowded right now, and we want to terraform Mars to increase our space.  Consider that the most optimistic estimates of the time needed to terraform a planet are on the order of 1000 years. But the Earth's population doubles every 30 years.  Long before we could populate Mars we would have outgrown Earth many times over.  Even if God or some benevolent aliens were to terraform Mars immediately, we still would only have 30 years of living before we were right back in the same predicament.  Clearly terraforming planets doesn't help with overcrowding.  The same goes for other resources as well, since other things being equal the greater the population the greater the resources consumed.
304597
Living on Mars is theoretically possible, but the cost of sustaining life there is prohibitive.  The greatest problem with sustaining life on Mars is that once humans got used to the lesser amount of gravity, they would not be able to return to earth as the organs would not be able to operate under the gravity on earth.\n\nAnd judgement day?  If you mean the day when you die, moving to Mars won't stop you from dying.  And if you mean a theoretical day when all of the humans will be judged at the same time, I doubt that moving to Mars is going to protect you from that, if you believe in that sort of thing.
606332
At first, I thought, 'sure' but then I realized that we know enough about Mars and after the excitement of lift off and weightlessness, I would be bored to death traveling for months, walking around in a Mars-suit all day while there, traveling for months to get back with a few oxidized rocks... \n\nSo, just save me a ticket to the ISS and I will be happy to go and spend a few weeks touring around this ol' blue planet.
213892
Not only in the next century. Humans will go to Mars during this century. It seems quite inevitable even if the US decides not to go. China has very ambitious plans for manned spaceflight. They have said they that they will go to the moon and if they accomplish that what´s to stop them from going to Mars? Certainly not a shortage of cash. In only a few decades China will have surpassed even the US as the supreme economic superpower of the world (if the current rate of economic growth can be maintained for that long). Not long ago they surpassed the French economy and are headed to beat the British next. Will the US want to got to sleep under a communist Mars? Could there be another space race under way? If another space race is launched then you can bet the US will do anything they can to beat the chinese. That would include a mannned mission to Mars within this century. A chinese mission to the moon will without a doubt raise some eyebrows in the US congress.
1036865
Still human being cannot determine simpler and safer way to get to the local orbit, let alone Mars together with long haul voyages, nowadays human's intellect is only good to sell the Moon's 'lands' for the future-based villas and finding idiotic 'smiles' on the Martian surface, unfortunately.   \ncheers
588448
Mankind will probably be able to go there, but it is quite far in the future - I'd say at least 20 to 25 years away.  Whether or not interest in doing so continues will depend on what is going on right here on earth, and whether we have the will to spend the money on the project.
413649
Mars being very hot now is not a suitable condition for humans and plants, as we know it, to live.\nBut now that Water in the form of Ice has been confirmed, it is a possibility for us to live there, provided that the ice has to be vapourised to create water clouds, and subseqently the clouds should give out rain, and when this chain starts, the creation of oxygen could be obtained by growing plants which emit oxygen. \nWHEW. That my friend is a hectic task ahead (and probably not feasible also). So may be, just may be, that some where about at 200 years down it could be a dream come true.\n\nBesides, we would only be intruding the rules of the Nature by doing so.
486442
It will cost about $1 billion to get to Mars. The atmosphere is carbon dioxide. You can't breathe it. There is no weather on Mars. THe Size of MArs is about one-eighth the size of Earth.
1059573
Sure if you mean a robotic space craft. We could even send a human, if we don't care that he would die shortly. As far as sending a craft with a living human, we don't have that technology within a reasonable price range.
838948
It's not so much the Martian life that might have been there, but rather, the Earthly life that we could send there in the event of, oh say, an anticipated global-killer meteor hit here until everything cooled down and Earthly re-seeding could begin. Aside from that, we humans, we explore.