Those that go into HEO, or as Phobos-Grunt was meant to do, off to Mars, absolutely do need that protection.
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It's often said that we know more about the surface of the Moon or even of Mars than we do about the two-thirds of our planet covered by water.
The students, aged from seven to 24, were asked to develop an experiment to test anything humans may "want to take or do on Mars in the future".
But I do think a Mars commercial shuttle might be up and running by now.
Not to say the cast of Veronica Mars is a bunch of homeless do-nothings, but many are less busy than they used to be.
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If humans ever do go to asteroids or Mars, the scale of the infrastructure needed to complete a safe round trip could not possibly be launched on a single rocket from Earth.
Computer scientist Maja Mataric, whose research was used in the Sojourner robot that went to Mars in 1997, confesses that what she really wanted to do was design shoes.
The Mars Science Laboratory is a precursor mission to sharper technology that could do life detection, Grotzinger said.
What do we currently know about the history and future possibility of life on Mars?
"We're handing off to the private sector our transportation to the International Space Station so that Nasa can focus on what we do best - exploring even deeper into our Solar System, with missions to an asteroid and Mars on the horizon, " explained agency administrator Charles Bolden.
"The only way to do that is to expand it out and voila you have living space for three people to go to Mars, " he said.
In theory, by delegating to the private sector the humdrum business of ferrying food and astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit, NASA hopes to free up cash to do other, more difficult things, including sending people to nearby asteroids by 2025, and on to Mars by the 2030s.
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