An artist's impression of Curiosity at work on Mars. Photo: NASA

Is NASA going to send astronauts to Mars?

That's the agency's stated goal, though there's no mission yet, certainly no budget (it would probably give legislators the jitters) and, at the moment, NASA doesn't have the technology to land astronauts safely and then bring them back to Earth.

So humans to Mars is aspirational, with the tough logistical and political issues yet to be resolved.

"We're on a path to be able to do it in the 2030s": NASA administrator Charles Bolden. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

Amplification of NASA's long-term Mars strategy came on Monday at the start of a three-day conference at George Washington University in Washington called the Humans to Mars Summit, or H2M.

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NASA administrator Charles Bolden was the keynote speaker and he was soon followed by senior agency officials who have Mars on the mind.

All expressed cautious optimism that the agency is on the right path to get to Mars eventually, though some members of the audience were openly impatient and more than a little dismissive of NASA's current plan to send astronauts on a mission to inspect a lassoed asteroid.

After three senior NASA officials - William Gerstenmaier, John Grunsfeld and Michael Gazarik, the associate administrators for human exploration, science and space technology, respectively - talked extensively of the asteroid mission, an audience member took a microphone and expressed exasperation that they were so focused on the asteroid rather than Mars.

Read the original post:

NASA still shooting for Mars