Page 161 - MY STORY

A LOOK TO OUR FUTURE IN THE 70’S — OFF TO MARS

This story is not about me. It’s about us. Us is NASA and

those of us in Advanced Systems and Technology at
McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach, California.

By God, we’d done it!! In less than 10 years we had gone
from concept to putting men on the moon and bringing
them home in one piece, none the worse for wear.

By the early ‘70’s we were self-convinced that there was
no hill too steep, no hurdle too high, no knowledge chasm

too deep, no risk too great, no objective too distant that
was beyond our ability to overcome and conquer. A
habitable space station in near earth orbit was already in

work along with the necessary delivery system to build it,
so as the next step — why not send astronauts to Mars,
live there for a bit, and safely return them? If we really

worked hard we could launch in 1981/82 when the Earth
to Mars distance was at its closest.

Of course there were obstacles to overcome in order to
send people great distances (around 245,000,000 miles or
almost 4 times the distance to the sun), and they were

huge, but then so was our venture to our nearby orbiting
moon, a mere 245,000 miles away when we attacked