Future of space exploration is red

           The future of manned space exporation is bright, according to some space experts.Humans may one day tread across some of the alien worlds that today can be studied only at a distance. Closer to home, private industries like Mars One seek to establish a permanent settlement on the Red Planet. At the Smithsonian Magazine's "The Future is Here Festival" in Washington, D.C. this month, former astronaut Mae Jemison and NASA engineer Adam Steltzner spoke optimistically about the future of manned space exploration."Exploration and the curiosity that motivate it are fundamentally human," Steltzner said during the conference.

           Steltzner served as the lead engineer for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. He helped to design and test the rover's one-of-a-kind descent system, but he isn't solely focused on robotic exploration of the solar system. Landing a human on the Red Planet would be far trickier than landing a robot. For instance, Curiosity hit the Martian atmosphere at 15 times the acceleration of gravity (15 gs). Traveling at such extreme speeds would be disastrous for humans, who only experience 1g while standing on Earth's surface. At 15gs, the retinas would detach from human eyes, Steltzner said.

      "Humans should be involved in exploration," Steltzner told the audience. That form of exploration could come in a number of ways. In addition to kicking up dust on a moon or planet in the solar system, Steltzner suggested another way to spread humans throughout the galaxy.