News Archive

Saturday, September 3, 2005 Mars by 2020? A report, released by Paul Wooster and other members of MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics department, and was partly funded by NASA, at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Space 2005 Conference in Long Beach, California says that if NASA makes the right choices, that "we can get to Mars in the 2020 timeframe," (Wooster). The idea behind the report is that the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), meant to be the Shuttle's successor, could be reused for a variety of missions, lessening the R&D for each individual mission. NASA has not released any official plans for Lunar or Martian exploration missions, but, according to Michael Griffin, they should be released late this September. Preliminary dates were placing a Mars mission past 2030. Wooster and his team examined over 2000 missions for safety, productiveness, and cost. (More info: New Scientist) @ 13:13 EST