At an event in India, a NASA representative said that sending humans to Mars is now the space agency's primary mission.
Mission To Mars
Lieutenant General Larry James, who serves as the deputy director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that the American space agency was working on the technology right now.
"Sending humans to orbit Mars is our primary mission now. We are working on the human and rocket technologies required for the long mission," said James.
NASA is currently developing a new series of rockets called Space Launch System with the first launch expected in 2019.
However, travel is only one of the problems facing human settlements on the Red Planet. It will take anywhere from two to three years for a crew to get to Mars, orbit the planet, and come back. That means that NASA needs to find a way to protect the crew from the planet's radiation and ensure they have supplies.
NASA is hoping to launch its first manned mission to Mars by 2030. However, it appears that the first manned mission will be an orbital mission. Actual settlement on Mars appears to be decades off. However, James did say that human settlement of the Red Planet was possible.
NASA isn't the only organization looking to settle at the Red Planet. Elon Musk has recently stated that establishing a settlement on Mars is necessary to ensure humanity's survival.
"One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event," Musk said. "I do not have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually, history suggests, there will be some doomsday event."
Moon Outpost
One of the ways to solve the issue of supplies, both in terms of fuel and food, is first establishing outposts on or in orbit around the moon. James said that the first step toward a manned mission to Mars would be establishing a long-term lunar base. While there has been some speculation regarding building an outpost on the moon, it is also possible that NASA may work on a space station in orbit around it.
"We are doing human research in that mission. Next stage is going to lunar space and building habitat there and staying for long periods of time," said James.
While the first settlements will obviously be research-based, it is theoretically possible to establish long-term habitats on the moon and that may happen before a settlement at Mars.
