Lockheed Martin, an American aerospace and advanced technologies company, has announced its plan on how to bring humans to Mars' orbit by 2028. The complex plan was presented on Thursday at the Humans to Mars Summit, which was also attended by the U.S. House of Representatives Space Subcommittee in Washington, DC, according to the Spaceflight Insider.
The plan is foreseen to be executed by 2028 when the necessary technology has been developed. The organization aims to keep the mission as efficient as possible. Dominic Antonelli, a former NASA astronaut and Lockheed Martin's chief technologist for civil space exploration, explains that the exploration cost has to be at a minimum.
But the concept is far from simple. The organization proposes that getting to the Red Planet requires a Martian Space Station to be built.
This advancement seems to complement NASA's Journey to Mars Initiative. But NASA has yet to publicly endorse the motion.
Wanda Sigur, Lockheed Martin's general manager of civil space projects, announced during the 3-day event that what the organization was presenting is a vision. She admitted that this wouldn't be a sure-fire way to inhabit Mars, but it does optimize a large number of components being developed for putting humans onto another planet, according to the National Geographic.
Lockheed Martin also made the plans available to the public on the organization's YouTube channel.
The concept relied heavily on NASA's existing hardware designs, many of which are used by the Orion deep-space module. Lockheed Martin manufactures the module mentioned above for the space agency.
Influential persons have also commented on the proposed plan, albeit with a mixed response. Scott Hubbard, director of Stanford University's Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation, said that he gives the organization "kudos for being bold," but he also stated that it doesn't have much margin for error to make the concept possible.
