According to NASA chief, the agency will reach Mars sooner than what was thought earlier. As per NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle commander, he had thought of becoming the first person to reach the red planet when he arrived at Houston's Johnson Space Center in 1980 for astronaut training.

During that time, it was thought that a manned Red Planet mission will take 30 years, according to Bolden. This turned out to be a too optimistic assessment. However, now the agency’s goal to get astronauts to the red planet in the 2030s is highly achievable, Bolden added.

Bolden said, “We are farther down the path to sending humans to Mars than at any point in NASA's history. We have a lot of work to do to get humans to Mars, but we'll get there”. He was speaking during an event at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC that explained NASA's manned Mars plans.

Dava Newman, NASA Deputy Administrator and Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division also participated in the discussion that was webcast live on NASA TV. Other participants included many NASA researchers, in addition to Andy Weir, who is author of the sci-fi novel "The Martian” on basis of which a movie has been made starring Matt Damon that will be released on October 2.

This work consists of development of a capsule called Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket in order to assist in getting astronauts to deep-space destinations.