NASA has provided a few tantalizing details describing its first crewed mission to Mars, which is expected to take place at some point in the 2030s.
The U.S. space agency recently announced its top objectives for a 30-day, two-person Mars surface mission and asked the public to provide feedback on the process. The deadline for that feedback was recently extended to June 3 from its original date of May 31.
NASA hopes to launch humans to Mars in the next decade or in the early 2040s, and the first human to set foot on the red planet could be a woman, according to former NASA chief Jim Bridenstine.
Before that can happen, the space industry has to think up solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing the first humans to reach Mars. Gravity, for example, will be an issue, with humans facing tough conditions as they acclimatize to gravity on Mars after months in microgravity. Mars has roughly one-third the gravity of Earth, but astronauts' muscles will have degraded to the point they may struggle to walk when they first reach the planet.
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