NASA’s biggest mistake.

In my opinion NASA’s biggest mistake wasn’t one that ended with the deaths of crew members, but instead set us back decades in scientific research.

This might sound crazy but NASA could’ve gotten us to mars in the early 1980s.

A theoretical rocket design by Wernher von Braun was capable of taking us to mars. According to Wikipedia “Following the success of the Apollo Program, von Braun advocated a crewed mission to Mars as a focus for NASA's crewed space program. Von Braun's proposal used Saturn V boosters to launch NERVA-powered upper stages that would propel two six-crew spacecraft on a dual mission in the early 1980s. The proposal was considered by President Richard Nixon but passed over in favor of the Space Shuttle.”

What this means is that the engines and thrusters capable of taking us to mars existed during the the late 60s.

The 80s were picked so they had enough time to design, build and test a fleet of rockets and landing Modules.

Just imagine how much would be different if this plan went through.

Submitted April 26, 2020 at 09:51PM by Night-Monkey15 https://ift.tt/2y48KjD