The dream of humans on Mars has been part of science fiction for well over a century. Engineering such an undertaking was described a little over 60 years ago by Werner von Braun, first in German and then in English. Von Braun's calculations and overall approach have held up rather well over the years-in part due to the rocket scientist's brilliance and in part due to the fundamental physics of launch requirements. A human mission to Mars was proposed by von Braun and NASA as the logical follow-on to Apollo, but cost considerations and the politics of the Nixon post-Vietnam War era put an end to the dream. As my friend and colleague Prof. John Logsdon has chronicled, it is extremely unlikely that we will once again experience a "Kennedy moment" where NASA receives 4% of the federal budget for a crash program built on an international "space race."
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机译：一个世纪以来，人类在火星上的梦想一直是科幻小说的一部分。沃纳·冯·布劳恩（Werner von Braun）在60年前就曾描述过这种工程，首先是德语，然后是英语。多年来，冯·布劳恩（Von Braun）的计算和总体方法一直保持良好状态-部分是由于火箭科学家的出色才华，部分是由于发射要求的基本物理原理。冯·布劳恩和美国国家航空航天局提出了人类对火星的任务，这是对阿波罗的合乎逻辑的后续行动，但出于成本考虑和越战后尼克松的政治，这一梦想得以终结。正如我的朋友和同事约翰·洛格斯登（John Logsdon）教授所记述的那样，我们极不可能再经历一次“肯尼迪时刻”，美国宇航局将获得联邦预算的4％，用于一项基于国际“太空竞赛”的坠毁计划。
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