How NASA Will Get Astronauts to Mars

[Tangri]

NASA wants the world to know that putting boots on Mars is not just a sci-fi dream.

The space agency has been helping promote the new film "The Martian," which hits theaters across the United States today (Oct. 2), as a way to publicize its own plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s.

Setting up a crewed outpost on Mars is NASA's chief long-term goal in the realm of human spaceflight. Indeed, the space agency's operational robotic Mars craft — the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) — can be seen as scouts for the human pioneers to come, NASA officials say. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas]

http://www.space.com/30733-the-martian-nasa-real-mars-mission-plans.html



And Best motion picture, musical or comedy award goes to Martians.

Can you see the irony here?
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[Matt P]

I don't believe anything NASA says. I believe we already are going to Mars. I just watched the Martian the other night. It was a good movie but was, in my opinion, used to further some deceptions about Mars and NASA. Twice, very specific references were made (one by Jeff Daniel's character, once by Matt Damon's) that NASA was a public organization with a duty to be open and that NASA was not a military organization. Both of these are nasty calculated lies and both seemed out of place and unnecessary in the movie, as if placed there just to deceive the viewer. Of course the entire movie is made using the same red filters that NASA uses to hide the true color of Mars. And I also chuckled at Damon's character talking about how no one had ever been to or colonized Mars. Again, it was a good movie but used to keep the waters muddy on some important aspects of Mars and NASA. If you want to make sure people continue to believe in things that aren't true, it seems making a major movie with big cast and make sure it wins some major awards would give it the credibility to be taken seriously and achieve that.

Matt