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Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun had already written a series of articles in Collier’s Weekly magazine promoting the possibility of a 10 strong armada of spacecraft, each manned by 70 astronauts, journeying to Mars by the time his Saturn V rocket sent the Apollo 11 crew to the Moon.
Von Braun intended his vision to be the next stage in NASA's already successful manned space program. His ambitious early plans were revised to include only 12 Mars astronauts travelling in twin spacecraft. This slimline mission included an orbital vehicle, a three-stage, nuclear powered rocket capped with a delta winged, reusable excursion module to explore the planet’s surface.
Testing was anticipated to begin in 1978, with the first Mars landing in 1982. The project received backing from NASA when the Space Task Group submitted its final report in September 1969, recommending the entire project.
But the dawn of the 1970s was the worst of times for the space program. The prospect that the national purse should spend an estimated $78.2 billion in ten years on a space station, a lunar base, Mars exploration and a space shuttle wasn’t met with the same euphoria of the first lunar landing. Long haul, manned flights failed to capture the public imagination. Coupled with the grainy black and white images of a dusty, desolate planet returned by space probe Mariner 4, public support completely failed. Distracted by vote winning initiatives elsewhere, the Nixon administration cut the budget to von Braun’s dream. The only element of the project to survive was the space shuttle design.
Von Braun intended his vision to be the next stage in NASA's already successful manned space program. His ambitious early plans were revised to include only 12 Mars astronauts travelling in twin spacecraft. This slimline mission included an orbital vehicle, a three-stage, nuclear powered rocket capped with a delta winged, reusable excursion module to explore the planet’s surface.
Testing was anticipated to begin in 1978, with the first Mars landing in 1982. The project received backing from NASA when the Space Task Group submitted its final report in September 1969, recommending the entire project.
But the dawn of the 1970s was the worst of times for the space program. The prospect that the national purse should spend an estimated $78.2 billion in ten years on a space station, a lunar base, Mars exploration and a space shuttle wasn’t met with the same euphoria of the first lunar landing. Long haul, manned flights failed to capture the public imagination. Coupled with the grainy black and white images of a dusty, desolate planet returned by space probe Mariner 4, public support completely failed. Distracted by vote winning initiatives elsewhere, the Nixon administration cut the budget to von Braun’s dream. The only element of the project to survive was the space shuttle design.
