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Have humans ever visited Mars?

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NASA.

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We Asked a NASA Scientist.

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Well, no humans have not been to Mars in person,

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but we've sent plenty of spacecraft there in the past.

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In fact, we have two operating rovers on the surface of Mars right now.

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These rovers are really instrumental in telling us what Mars is like

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in terms of the weather, the surface conditions, how cold it gets.

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So when we do want to send humans to Mars,

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we'll know a lot more than we would’ve otherwise.

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With our previous missions through robotic spacecraft

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we've learned a lot about how to land on Mars,

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not only in terms of getting spacecraft to the surface, but the conditions

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that come with landing on Mars.

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So why haven't humans been to Mars?

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Well, first of all, it's really far away.

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And so building the technology

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to be able to travel that long distance and protect the crews

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from the space environment and making sure that they can survive through the long

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journey is really important so we're still working on that process.

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Artemis will help us with that as we send humans back to the Moon, which we've done

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previously but haven't been to in quite some time.

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This will also help us then develop that technology that we're going to need

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to get humans to the surface of Mars and then back again.

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Meanwhile, while they’re on the surface of Mars,

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they're going to need to be able

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to survive there for some time while they do their work.

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We have an experiment on the Perseverance rover, which is actually collecting carbon dioxide

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out of Mars’ very thin atmosphere and converting that into oxygen.

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So not only will the astronauts be able to use this oxygen to breathe,

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but they can also use it for rocket fuel so that they can get back off the surface.

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So have humans ever visited Mars?

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Well, no, not in person, but through the Artemis program,

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we're working on it.