By Jand Wardell
London - European scientists set out a map on Tuesday for manned missions to Mars that aims to land astronauts on the Red Planet in less than 30 years.
Like American President George Bush's proposed mission to Mars, the plan put forward by the European Space Agency involves a "stepping stone" approach, which includes robotic missions and a manned trip to the Moon first.
"We need to go back to the Moon before we go to Mars. We need to walk before we run," said Dr Franco Ongaro, who heads the ESA's Aurora programme for long-term exploration of the solar system, at a meeting of Aurora scientists in London. "These are our stones. They will pave the way for our human explorers."
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'We need to walk before we run' The ESA has planned two flagship missions to Mars - ExoMars would land a rover on the planet in 2009, and Mars Sample Return would bring back a sample of the Martian surface from 2011 to 2014.
Other test missions will include a non-manned version of the flight that would eventually carry astronauts to Mars to demonstrate aerobraking, solar electric propulsion and soft landing technologies.
A human mission to the Moon, proposed for 2024, would demonstrate key life-support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation to long-distance space flight.
The program is expected to cost about €900-million (about $1,13-billion) over the next five years.
Professor Colin Pillinger, the British scientist behind the recent ill-fated Beagle 2 expedition, said it was important to determine whether life existed on Mars before pressing ahead with a manned mission.
'They will pave the way for our human explorers' "Would it be right for us to tamper with the ecology on another body?" he asked. "My opinion is that it probably wouldn't."
The ExoMars rover would use solar arrays to generate electricity and travel several kilometres across the surface of Mars.
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