Bill Gerstenmaier Makes Revelation At Propulsion Meeting Of The American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics

In nearly every NASA news release over the past several years, the agency has touted its mission to "land humans on Mars" as one of its ultimate goals. The mission has been planned for sometime in the 2030s, and would be a crowning achievement for the agency.

But in remarks made during a propulsion meeting of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, NASA's chief of human spaceflight, Bill Gerstenmaier (pictured) said that the money just isn't there for the mission.

Ars Technica reports that Gerstenmaier said that the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft cost too much to build and fly, and NASA has not been able to begin designing the vehicles that would actually transport humans to the Martian surface, and then return to the orbiting spacecraft.

Gerstenmaier was responding to a question during a panel discussion at the meeting. "I can't put a date on humans on Mars, and the reason really is the other piece is, at the budget levels we described, this roughly 2 percent increase, we don’t have the surface systems available for Mars," he said"And that entry, descent and landing is a huge challenge for us for Mars."

He did say that if water is discovered on the Moon, the agency might devote more resources to a return to our nearest neighbor in space. But NASA leadership under the Trump administration is reportedly keeping its options open as to an extraterrestrial destination.

(Image from file)

FMI: Original Report