Mars Exploration
SESSION THREE stars Introduction In this symposium, we’ve heard from women and men exploring the earth, the seas, and the limits of human capability. We’ve discussed personal risk, programmatic risk, technical risk, survival of the species risk, and the most important of all, the risk of not exploring at all. We are compelled by some ancient instinct to push the limits, to go where humans can’t survive except for brief periods of time or with signifi cant technical support. My name is John Grunsfeld. I’m the chief scientist of NASA. I’m an astronaut; I’ve had the privilege to fl y four times in space. I’ve done fi ve space walks, so in fact—along the lines of going to places where people can’t survive—I do, in fact, work in a vacuum, along with many of the others in this room. And it’s truly a privilege to have been able to be involved at the infancy of space exploration. In this session, we do turn to that ultimate challenge, our fi rst steps off the home planet. We live in a truly remarkable time. As we speak here, as we’re comfortably sitting in this environment, Gennady Padalka, the commander on the International Space Station, and Mike Fincke, the chief science offi cer, are spending their 163rd day in space. (I may be off by a day.) For over three years, we’ve had 24/7–365 occupation of the International Space Station. The ultimate service, if you will. And I think that’s pretty remarkable.
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