India and the Mars

A quote from India Times

HYDERABAD: India's first mission to moon 'Chandrayaan I' this year, manned mission to earth's satellite in 2014, landing on Mars in 2020 and perhaps colonisation of the red planet later. That's Indian space think tank's list of missions for the future. 

The rotation of Mars is more or less as earth, but it has just one-third its density and one-tenth its atmosphere. "The day time temperatures are about 20 degrees Celsius though night time temperatures are low. We should be able to build an atmosphere without much problem. Then, we could send half our population there," said Physical Research Laboratory council chairman and former Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief Prof U R Rao on Monday. 

He was delivering the National Science Day lecture on 'The Exciting Frontiers of Space: Past, Present and Future' at the National Geophysical Research Institute in the city. Prof Rao, who played a key role in the development of launch vehicles like GSLV, PSLV and cryogenic engines, said that while it took a few billions of years for evolution to take place on earth, it could be triggered on Mars by sending bacteria of various kinds. This would mean that water and other essentials need not be transported from earth. 

"Nations will have to come together for colonisation of Mars. We should build a mass transportation system to send people to Mars though it takes six months to reach there," added U R Rao. Earth's natural satellite, moon, would need to be used as a transition point to Mars. He said that an elevator could be built to moon as it was only half a million miles away.