Blueprints for the red planet

The first serious proposal for sending humans to Mars is credited to Werner Von Braun, the rocket engineer who designed V2 missiles for Germany during World War II. In 1952, he outlined plans for a fleet of spaceships that would carry dozens of men to Mars and back. But it was expensive and no one seemed interested.

Shortly after, the U.S. and Soviet Russia duked it out in a space race, part of which involved landing data-gathering spacecraft on Mars in the 1960s and 70s. Manned Mars missions never made the cut. Currently, NASA has a manned mission on the planning board, but it has evolved over the years, and funding and scheduling are still pretty sketchy. About the only competition NASA has comes from small groups of citizens devoted to extending the reach of mankind into space. For them, Mars is just the next inevitable step.