A human-manned mission to Mars has been the aspiration of many scientists since the 19th century. Now, plans set out proposals to evetually settle on and colonise the planet, thereby utilising its moons – Phobos and Deimos. However, one of the biggest issues NASA has faced over the years has been cost.
It is estimated the price of sending humans to Mars would be around £385billion, with fuel taking up a large chunk of that.
Scientists would need to plan two to three years in advance of the mission just to make it there, let alone back.
However, computer scientist Erika Debenedictis may have come up with a simple solution, it was revealed during a TED Talks podcast.
She said in 2013: “Somewhere in between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt.
NASA has long been interested in colonising Mars (Image: GETTY)
NASA has spent millions researching the mission (Image: GETTY)
Then five years later, we launch our humans, blast through, pick up the boosters and enjoy the benefits
Erika Debenedictis
“We know the orbit of a lot of asteroids in this belt.
“There are big gaps in the asteroid distribution where there are no asteroids.
“If you look at those gaps, if there was an asteroid there, it would go around the sun once every four Earth years."
Ms Debenedictis revealed why Jupiter could prove vital in
