“Mars has water, Mars has a lot of the elements that make it possible to have life, and, it is the planet in the solar system that is the most like Earth where we can go to actually put humans on to explore and to eventually someday to colonize Mars. And that’s important for the survival of humanity.” 

“My first recollection of Mars was, I remember being at Disney Land, I remember they had an exhibit, right, Tomorrowland, you know, the place where they have all the futuristic things, they had, Mars rovers…before that point like I didn’t really connect that Mars was a real place – when I saw those Mars rovers I realized, wow, those are on another planet. […] There’re pivotal points in human history and it’s just one of those things that, for the rest of time it will be remembered: the people’s efforts that went into that.”

“The one thing I’ve always thought of as Mars is, when they describe it as the planet that’s most similar to Earth, which, of course makes you think “Well, that’s the first one we should visit.””

“I remember the first time that I saw some pictures from the surface of Mars…it would have been in the early nineties. And I thought, “Wow, this is a real place that you can go to” and I know that I want to advance the program so that we can go there.” 

“When we first see that launch, it’s gonna be real cool, because, it’ll demonstrate that ‘yes we really are headed to Mars’.”

“So using SLS Orion and Solar-Electric propulsion gives us the fastest and safest way to get to Mars. I’m very excited because we have a great suite of propulsion on every stage of the SLS vehicle.”

“We’ll be using existing assets and adapting them to the vehicle for the first few flights and we’re also in the process of bringing back up the production line and infusing modern manufacturing techniques, into building the RS25 of the future.”

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