Hi Andrew,

My personal opinion is that NASA's money is better spent sending robotic missions to Mars rather than humans. While it is exciting to think of humans walking on Mars it is a very complicated and hard journey to make (and return from). In terms of science, it is much easier to put a robot or rover on Mars and they can stay there performing experiments and exploring for much longer than a human could.

It will take a lot of money and focus for NASA to send humans to Mars and I don't think the government currently wants to spend that kind of money. So, for that reason I don't think it will happen within the next 20 years.

However, there is talk/plans by NASA of sending a human to an asteroid by 2025.

-Christina