Launch costs were high and minimizing mass sent to space was the main driver for mission design. To reduce mass, mission designs employed nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to produce propellants for ascent from Mars and reliance on efficient recycling of gaseous and liquid wastes.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (WPVI) -- A NASA rover has landed on Mars on Thursday afternoon in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on the red planet. The space agency says the six-wheeled Perseverance hurtled through ...

David Alexander, the director of the Rice Space Institute, talks about SpaceX's Starship tests and the eventual goal of going to Mars.

Separately, the NASA program of humans in space began as a cold war effort but has evolved significantly, especially since the end of the Shuttle era. The short-term goal for humans is embodied in the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon using commercially provided human landing systems. The long-term goal is to send humans to Mars.

Opportunity and Spirit survive "six minutes of terror." “Landing on Mars” is the story of Opportunity and Spirit surviving a massive solar flare during cruise ...

Trips to Mars with temporary stays is one thing, says David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University in Houston. Establishing permanent residency on Mars is something