The Congress is in favor of a trip to the Moon and wants NASA to make it a priority over an asteroid mission or Mars exploration. The House reportedly wants the space agency to plan a lunar mission, because then NASA could pretest technologies needed for a mission to the red planet on the Moon itself.
"There is no better proving ground than the Moon for NASA to test the technologies and techniques needed to successfully meet the goal of sending humans to Mars by the mid 2030s," said Mike Honda, Congress Representative. The possible tests that NASA can carry out on the Moon in preparation of the Martian mission could include testing habitation modules, lunar prospecting, landing and ascent of vehicles. Furthermore, according to reports, NASA itself wants to focus on the lunar mission to facilitate the target of Mars expedition. The exploration of the Moon will give astronauts an experience of real human spaceflight outside Earth's low orbit before actually embarking on a journey to the Martian surface.
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