Why the US can’t send humans to Mars

1990s: “Better, faster, cheaper”

By the 1990s, Mars enthusiasts were dreaming of getting humans there by the end of the millennium. The aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin formed the Mars Society, an advocacy group pushing for the planet’s exploration and eventually establishing a human settlement there.

Just a couple of years later, though, NASA lost two more uncrewed spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter.