Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA, said the national space agency has its sights on landing a human colony on Mars. In an interview with the Observer, she stated the search for extraterrestrial life is another primary goal for the group.
Stofan explained that the search for life on other planets is currently being focused on bodies in our solar system, rather than surrounding other stars. Mars is among the places in our planetary system where primitive life might be found. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and Titan, orbiting around Saturn, are other bodies where living organisms could have arisen.
NASA has set a goal of landing a person on the Red Planet sometime during the 2030's.
Stofan is a field geologist by training, which feeds her desire to assist the nation - and world - onto Mars.
"Humans can actually read a landscape, go through a lot of rocks - crack them open, throw them, pick up the next one. Rovers are great, they do amazing science, but it is a lot more tedious process - they go much less far than a human can cover in a day," Stofan said.
The Europa Clipper is a mission plan being studied by the space agency to investigate the icy moon. This orbiter would examine Europa from as close as 15 miles above its surface, attempting to answer some vital questions about the satellite.
"We know there is an ocean under that icy crust. There are plumes of water coming out of the cracks in the south polar region. There's orange gunk all over the surface - what the heck is that stuff?" Stofan asked about the distant moon, which she described as the next step for robotic exploration.
If NASA does land a crew on Mars, they could find other humans already living on the rusty alien surface. At least two private organizations, MarsOne and SpaceX, plan on sending crews and colonies to the red planet several years before NASA's target date.
Stofan also spoke of NASA plans to capture and asteroid, and bring it into orbit around the moon. From there, it could be easily studied up close, revealing information about these minor bodies. It could also be used as a base for missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. One idea under consideration is to capture the rocky body in a large back, hauling it into position using solar-electric propulsion - a pioneering form of the ion engines from Star Trek. A similar propulsion system would be ideal to transport cargo to Mars with a minimum of effort or expense.
