Hyperdrive
Elon Musk’s Mars Ambition Could Be the Riskiest Human Quest Ever
- Billionaire aims to put humans on the planet as early as 2026
- Lots of unanswered questions confronting deep-space travel
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More than half a century after Neil Armstrong took mankind’s giant leap on the moon, another space race is heating up. This time, the promising new frontier for Earthlings is Mars, the planet next door.
A spate of robotic missions to the red planet, including NASA’s Perseverance rover this year and China’s Zhurong this month, have led to the inevitable question: When can humans follow? Unmanned missions over the decades have beamed a trove of information, including the presence of water ice on Mars, fueling expectations a human landing is possible. But how soon? And, are we ready?