What is a realistic time frame for the first manned mission to Mars?

Question

Mars is the closest planet to Earth. Some refer to it as Earth's cousin. There is a lot of evidence which suggests that life flourished on the Red Planet in the distant past. Populating Mars has been touted as an alternative for Earthlings given our problems with continued global warming and melting polar icecaps. Should Earth ever become unliveable, what is a realistic time frame for us "civilizing" Mars?

Answer 1

I could see a "space race" to Mars in the middle to later parts of this century.  An actual permanent base?  Maybe 100 years after that, maybe.    Terraforming Mars--maybe for the start of the 4th millennium.

Answer 2

I think Buzz Aldrin put it best when he said that the challenges that would need to be overcome and resources that will need to be used between now and a manned mission to mars will not be as bad as the challenges and resources required for Apolo at the time of JFK's historical speech.  Bear in mind, that they put a man on the moon less than a decade later.  I doubt that theres much need for a program on the scale of apollo, but theres no reason why they can't do it by 2030.

Answer 3

I think Venus is closer than Mars, But Mars has a more hospitable environment than Venus, 2030 to 2050 Mars research outposts could be set up, 2060 to 2100 civilian colonists could start setting up permanent residence on the planet.

Answer 4

We will send manned missions to mars by 2020.  If all goes well and according to plan it should be colonized by at least a  thousand people by 2100.

Answer 5

There's a great book about this called "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must".  In it Dr. Robert Zubrin, former chair of the National Space Society lays out a plan how we can get to Mars, using currently available technology, in about 8 to 9 years.  I highly recommend it as it describes very technical ideas in layman's terms.

The key component is first sending an unmanned vehicle to Mars with a device to make fuel from the air in Mars atmosphere.  Its a relatively old and reliable technology.  Further, allowing the manned mission to carry only the fuel it needs for the outgoing trip solves a slew of logistics issues and eliminates the need of a moon base.

Although the book was written in 1996, it addresses quite compellingly all of the issues NASA is currently investigating including psychological impacts and long term radiation exposure.      

Basically, Mars is much easier to reach than it seems, and the technology is already available. It could be done in the time it took us to get to the Moon in the 60s.

Answer 6

There will not be a manned mission to Mars in our lifetimes.  As far as colonizing Mars, changing the climate, giving it an atmosphere we could live in, that's thousands of years away.  We have many many problems to solve, many discoveries to make, much new technology to invent.

But even the idea of sending people to Mars and bringing them back is outrageously complicated, so far beyond our current capabilities.  We have much more pressing issues to spend the money on.  Like finding the next big power source before oil runs out, just for instance.

Answer 7

A realistic time frame for "civilizing" the Red Planet? I agree with the quotes - maybe we'll say peopling the planet. I doubt a (probably) lifeless ball needs "civilizing." I digress.

Despite USA's current lengthy time frame for reaching Mars -- early 2030s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_miss... -- I think it could be reached by humans in ten years. It could be colonized with a self-sustaining colony that could lead to planet-wide colonization. I think a self-sustaining colony of several hundred could be realistically envisioned within 50 years. Only the political will is lacking.