On 50th anniversary of first American to orbit Earth, Glenn pushes for manned Mars mission…and so do I

From Space.com:

1975 Viking photo of Mars

Former NASA astronaut John Glenn is pushing for manned exploration of Mars and other farflung destinations.

On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit Earthwhen his Friendship 7 capsule zipped around our planet three times, then splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. Glenn’s flight put the United States back on even footing with the Soviet Union, which had launched the first manned orbital flight in April 1961.

The U.S.-Soviet space race in the 1960s got much of the American public excited about space science and exploration. That enthusiasm has since flagged, but sending astronauts to the Red Planet could help rekindle it, Glenn said.

“We haven’t done everything we should be doing in low-Earth orbit, as far as I’m concerned,” Glenn said. “I think your best way to Mars is assembling the vehicle in low-Earth orbit, and then eventually going out of low-Earth orbit from that.”

 

I’m a huge fan of manned spaceflight; one of my high school memories was running home as fast as I could to see the television coverage of the Challenger explosion after hearing rumors in school. And who hasn’t envisioned men (and women) on Mars? Mars has been such a driving force in my imagination, I couldn’t help but make it a central part of many scenes in my works. And with that, an obligatory snippet, this one from Gabriel’s Revenge (book 3):

Gabriel could hear the thin Mars atmosphere whipping past his combat helmet’s visor. Visibility from a thousand yards altitude was excellent, enhanced by his helmet’s optics, but no matter how hard he stared, there was simply nothing to see. Even the approaching dust storm barely visible in the distance held no interest for him.

Ordinarily, a typical first-time visitor to Mars would gawk at the wide open plain and the terraced steppes of the northern rim of Valles Marineris, or marvel at the flashes of dirty gray water ice in the shade of some of the peaks, or point excitedly at the ancient dust-covered Russian and Japanese landers…

I’d very much like to see a manned landing on Mars before I shuffle off this mortal coil…hurry up, guys.