NASA is sticking to its plan to land astronauts on Mars, but are set on getting them there before anyone else.
According to Forbes, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden appeared before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Thursday morning to discuss the agency's budget proposal. During the section of the meeting where committee members were able to ask him questions, Bolden said NASA would have a hand in landing the first humans on the Red Planet.
As Forbes noted, one member suggested NASA could be engaged in a mid-to-late 2020s race to Mars with private companies like SpaceX and Mars One.
"No commercial company without the support of NASA and government is going to get to Mars," Bolden said.
In their "Journey to Mars" campaign, NASA promises to send humans to the Earth's planetary neighbor sometime in the 2030s. Thanks to numerous rovers on Mars' surface and a satellite observing it from above, NASA has determined the planet was once hospitable to microbial life.
At the space subcommittee meeting, Bolden stressed the importance of going to Mars and learning everything there is to learn.
"We need to understand Mars and what happened to it to understand what might happen to Earth," Bolden said, referencing Mars' still-mysterious loss of atmosphere. "Mars is the planet that is most like earth.
"And it will sustain life when humans get there in the 2030s."
