Humans could get to Mars in less than 10 years, if they put their minds to it. That is the message of the Mars Society, a group of scientists and space enthusiasts who met recently in Los Angeles. VOA's Mike O'Sullivan spoke with some about their vision for the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.

Mars

And they came to be inspired by people like Robert Zubrin, the aerospace engineer who heads the Mars Society, a non-profit educational and scientific organization with chapters in 40 countries. Zubrin says humans reached the moon with much simpler technology than we have now.

Robert Zubrin

Zubrin foresees an exploratory base and eventually permanent settlements on Mars.

President Bush has committed the United States to returning humans to the moon by 2020, and using the moon as a base to travel on to Mars. The key to the quest is funding, and the Mars Society is urging the president and Congress to allocate more money to space exploration. A volunteer collected petition signatures.

"Anybody want to sign letters to the Senate?" said the volunteer.

Robotic missions to Mars have greatly expanded our knowledge. Two orbiters of the U.S. space agency NASA are circling the planet, and two NASA rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still functioning on the surface. The latest NASA mission, the Phoenix Lander, was launched August 4, and it will analyze water ice in the Martian arctic.

Fuk Li

"We are still looking for the ingredients that are perhaps necessary for the formation of life. One of them is water," said Li. "And one of the themes that has been permeating through our exploration in the last decade is looking for water, follow the water. Try to see where, when, how much, in what form, that water is on Mars."

Peter Diamandis

Diamandis heads his own company that offers weightless rides in airplanes that simulate the zero-gravity conditions of space. He has helped send private citizens, including millionaire Dennis Tito, to the international space station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets. And he is planning a competition for rocket racers. He says we are beginning a new age of exploration.

"From here on out, we are going to have people opening up the solar system, and thousands of years from now, people look back at this time and say, that is the magical moment," said Diamandis.

Emily Colvin

"I would ideally love to go into nuclear thermal propulsion, although I am also doing some other stuff on the side right now toward surface nuclear power, looking at the systems we could take to the Moon or Mars to power a base," said Colvin.

She says our human future is on Mars and other planets, and she hopes to be involved in the process of getting us there.