The Hundred Year Starship: The Nasa mission that will take astronauts to Mars and leave them there forever

By Niall Firth
Last updated at 8:26 AM on 28th October 2010
Comments 464

The mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before – on a flight to Mars.

The snag is that you’d never come back.

The U.S. space agency Nasa is actively investigating the possibility of humans colonising other worlds such as the Red Planet in an ambitious project named the Hundred Years Starship.

The settlers would be sent supplies from Earth, but would go on the understanding that it would be too costly to make the return trip.

NASA Ames Director Pete Worden revealed that one of NASA’s main research centres, Ames Research Centre, has received £1million funding to start work on the project.

The research team has also received an additional $100,000 from Nasa.


Astronauts would be marooned on the planet's surface and would never be able to return home due to cost


An artist's impression of a Mars base manned by astronauts who would have to learn to be self-sufficient

‘You heard it here,â€