IF (Theoretically) NASA had the money (& a way to send along an unlimited amount of food & water) would NASA?

Question

be able to build a rocket ship
(similar to the Apollo program with a few additional things the astronauts used to survive on the space shuttle) to take astronauts to Planet MARS for a visit

so the Astronauts can spend time exploring Planet MARS
& return to Planet Earth with samples of Martian soil & Martian rocks

Or are there other things NASA would need besides
money & an unlimited supply of food & water for the journey to & from (and for the time the astronauts live on Planet Mars) Mars

Answer 1

It wouldn't even need unlimited food or water. It could launch resupply shuttles in a flotilla, or send food ahead before it sent the astronauts with enough food for the trip. Water doesn't get lost very much - it can be collected from waste and condensed from the air the astronauts exhale.



EDIT: ****, sorry - Donut Tim is right. We haven't solved the cosmic rays. It would be impractically expensive to send enough protection into space to protect them (with ****loads of ****loads of money, we could construct a huge lead shield in orbit and then send up engines for this to propel it along with the rocket, but I don't think the world has produced enough money to do this since the real space programs started.

Answer 2

Currently NASA's budget is under 1% of the entire federal budget. Congress is still maling cute to it.

Even so, we are currently planning on making a deep space transport sustem, further landings on the moon, then creating a moon base, then making manned trips to orbit and return from mars, then we will have a mission to land men on mars. All of this is projected to start happening sometime around 2025 with the manned landing being sometime in the late 2030's I believe.



Currently China has plans on creating a lunar base. They want to become the first to do so. Although unlikely unless congress keeps deciding that NASA is not important amd keep cutting things like the James Webb Space Telescope.

Answer 3

If NASA had that kind of money and that kind of equipment, we'd already be there.



The trips to the Moon (at least the first ones) really galvanized the interest for space exploration among Americans. Then, after a few trips, already people were losing interest (short attention span, I guess). That is the real reason the money started to fizzle out and the interests (at least, among scientists) was for more un-manned (less expensive) missions to discover more about the rest of the solar system.

Answer 4

No, sorry.

There is no known way to prevent the Mars travelers from dying from cosmic rays. The technology does not yet exist.

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It is difficult to get a feel for just how far away Mars is from Earth. We sent people to the Moon so some think we can just hop on over to Mars and explore. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. A vast amount of energy, food, water and fuel would be needed for the 22 month round trip.



It is also difficult to get a feel for how much money, technology and resources are required just to get material off the Earth and into high Earth orbit. The vast majority of the weight involved is take-off fuel. It must be remembered that your space ship will need enough fuel to take-off from the surface of Mars for the return trip, and Mars has far stronger gravity than the Moon.

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Answer 5

No. The political will is absent and their policy seems to be that automatic probes work better and are more cost-effective than humans. Also, the main obstacle is not food and water but the radiation from here to Mars.

Answer 6

If NASA had the money it would happen sooner than if NASA didn't have the money

Answer 7

Yes, they would!