Human Explorers News Today

Maybe even one day go to mars. >> frankly, nasa will send robots ahead of the astronauts to the planet. these robots will start preparing the way for the human explorers. >> the first valkyrie has another mission. to compete in a robotic challenge sponsored by the department of defense. >> the robots at nasa johnson space flight center has been building is an extraordinary machine. of all the robots, its the one with the most degrees of freedom, the most joints to move around. its really quite s...

In the past and how easy it might be to live there in the future. this study does answer those questions. it is more focused on whether or not humans might be able to go there in the future. if you think about what this find might mean for humans, if you take a cubic foot of mars dirt and heat it up like we did, you can get out almost a couple of bottles of water worth of water out of it. that is a great resource for human explorers. >>elisabeth: that is good news. brian can go. weve been waitin...

That were considering and now will be able to get funds needed to do that? >> this is a great question. and there is a 20% cut in next years budget. this, i hope will inspire the public cause interest in nasa mars and other missions and maybe they can marshal this support to follow up in a level with mars exploration and perhaps to the moon so human explorers can follow up these kinds of discoveries. >> and thank you so much for being with us. you have been watching special coverage of the space...

Astronauts putting their home work to bridge this goal of 35 million miles between earth and miles. by to 40 we might be ready to send human explorers there. that is many, many small steps and this is trying to build up capabilities for survival and existing on the surface using resources that is already there. >> for anyone just tuning this in, this is a very expensive mission. there is a lot riding on it. can you tell us what this means for the future of mars exploration? and planetary explora...

Next big step in mars exploration which is bringing samples back from the red planet. learning about possible life there and paving the way for human explorers. gregg: derek, when tom and i were covering yesterday, we got e-mails from people saying billions spent on this is a waste. there are no martians on mars. that is not the point. the point is were not looking for existing life there but the conditions that may have existed for organic life at one time? >> yes. what nasa is doing here is do...

Nasa put together 17 individual post of photographs to show us the one we have on screen. what does it tell you, tom? what questions does it raise? >> it is a wonder rouse panorama, join. much on student has been on the eight years after landing in 2004. it is embarking on another two year traverse across the crater looking for inhabitable climates in the marss history, looking for water-baring rocks in particular. this image strikes our imagination. it inspires us to want to put human explorers...

Of science exploration is what the u.s. excels at. fills people with awe and wonder and inspiration when we uncover new secrets of the origins of life on mars for example. and then human explorers i hope will one day be able to follow up these robotic discoveries and get to the rub of these questions. is there life there now? did life exist there in the past? that would really answer the question are we alone? that is fundamental. i think that is what we should be pursuing and human explorers ha...

Programs and hubble space telescope were a country that will soon have no system for spending people into space. now the only way we can get into space is to count on the russians and as you said, they have upped the price of the seat on the soyuz to $56 million, per astronaut, martha. martha: you know, last week the relationship between the governments seemed good, although some people would say the missile defense issue is going to come back into play and might cause tension and what if things...