The focus was on Valles Marineris and Tharsis, and several university groups developed exploration plans. The top map shows a landing area in the canyon system where layered sediments suggested deposition in a lake. Another scenario involved a base camp (with several candidates around Tharsis) and long rover traverses to points of scientific interest during a 500 day stay before returning to Earth.

#mars #humanstomars

Our next mission which didn't happen is the Mars Reference Mission, a study done during the late 1990s of a human Mars mission. Infrastructure and supplies would be launched in 2007, 2009 and 2011, and a six person crew would fly in 2013. Sample return and resource utilization experiments would be done first. A return vehicle and fuel manufacturing hardware would go next and people would not leave Earth until everything was ready for them.

#mars #humanstomars