Before the 1980’s, many people thought that mankind would be making colonies on Mars by the 2000’s. Now, in 2017, we have yet to land a single human being on the Red Planet. However, with international interest growing regarding accessing our galactic neighbor, it seems humans may find themselves facing Mars quite soon.

According to Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX, the astronomical company is aiming to land a man on Mars by 2024. It would obviously take many resources and people in order to achieve the goal of sending humans to Mars in 7 years. This would achieve a massive breakthrough in scientific research, however, it is a short amount of time. Scientists would have an entirely new planet to conduct research on, new places to explore, perhaps even new minerals to gather data on. Being able to collect this data so rapidly would skyrocket scientific research for decades to come and possibly speed up astronomic research.

Such a hurry to send men into space could potentially be disastrous as well.

“I always err on the side of caution when we’re talking about man’s missions,” said Mr. Boyle, a physics and astronomy teacher at Air Academy High School. “It needs to be done properly, safely, and with thought. If we rush people to Mars too quickly, it could be a bad situation for all of us.”

Attempting to rush the mission to Mars could jeopardize the safety of the astronauts, the expensive equipment needed to get there, and the overall mission itself. Critical errors can be made if time becomes a priority over safety, and if something goes wrong, a redo will not be easy nor cheap.