Best of all, human missions are virtually guaranteed to last much longer than current rover missions: while the minimum duration for the Mars rovers to be considered a success was 90 days,
a successful human mission — i.e. one which returned the astronauts to earth — would take 910 days (roughly 2.5 years), with 550 of those days (about 1.5 years) spent on the surface of Mars.
It has truly been an exciting year for Mars and
human space exploration with NASA's announcement of the Journey to Mars program that includes a
human mission to the Red Planet, astronaut Scott Kelly starting a one - year
mission on board the ISS, the highly - publicized debut of «The Martian» movie, the
successful growth of SpaceX and the commercial space industry, and NASA's recent confirmation of water on the surface of Mars.