The mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before – on a flight to Mars. The snag is that you’d never come back. The U.S. space agency Nasa is actively investigating the possibility of humans colonising other worlds such as the Red Planet in an ambitious project named the Hundred Years Starship. The settlers would be sent supplies from Earth, but would go on the understanding that it would be too costly to make the return trip. NASA Ames Director Pete Worden revealed that one of NASA’s main research centres, Ames Research Centre, has received £1million funding to start work on the project. The research team has also received an additional $100,000 from Nasa.Depending on the position of Mars in its orbit around the sun, its distance from Earth varies between 34million and 250million miles. The most recent unmanned mission there was Nasa’s Phoenix lander, which launched in August 2007 and landed on the planet’s north polar cap in May the following year. Experts say a nuclear-fuelled rocket could shorten the journey to about four months. (Daily Mail) [Opinion: more than likely we are already on Mars?]
