Man can set foot on Mars in less than 15 years: NASA scientist

Anita Sengupta impressed with Indian students, says some questions she got from them are very technical in nature

Man could set foot on Mars in the next 5 to 15 years, says Anita Sengupta, an Indian origin scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US.

“Future manned missions to Mars are an eminently doable feat from the perspective of a scientific endeavour. But a lot depends on sustained adequate budgetary support, supply of resources and a (political) will for the mission,” said Dr. Sengupta, a scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a California-based field centre of NASA.