Goal 1: Determine whether life ever existed on Mars. This summer, NASA is continuing its Mars Exploration Program with the launch of the Perseverance rover in July. (CNN) — A mission 10 years in the making, NASA is one month out from launching the Perseverance rover to Mars. A human mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction, aerospace engineering and scientific proposals since the 20th century. Overview of Moon to Mars: NASA's plans to enable human exploration of the Moon as preparation for human missions to Mars and deeper into the solar system. But it's also a far more modest goal than sending humans to Mars. Here's what you need to know about the Mars 2020 mission. [citation needed]The exploration of Mars has been a goal of … NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover: What you need to know | … Plans include landing on Mars for exploration at a minimum, with the possibility of sending settlers and terraforming the planet or exploring its moons Phobos and Deimos also considered. "NASA's Worst Plan Yet" blares the headline in National Review over Zubrin's byline. Zubrin, for one, thinks it's a terrible idea. The mission of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover focuses on surface-based studies of the Martian environment, seeking preserved signs of biosignatures in rock samples that formed in ancient Martian environments with conditions that might have been favorable to microbial life. The UAE's ambitious project to build the first human settlement on Mars by 2117 is "possible", a senior scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA… NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s goals outlined in the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and in the U.S. National Space Policy, also issued in 2010.