MOSCOW. April 7 (Interfax-AVN) - Manned expeditions to Mars or the asteroid belt can be done within an international program only, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Anatoly Grigoryev said.
"The countdown will start at the moment the decision is made and the serious work is started: when a program is adopted, money is allocated and collectives of the international project are formed. I think that the project will take at least 20 years after that," he said in answer to the question when the first manned flight to Mars might take place.
Security of the crew will be the main focus of the project, Grigoryev said. "There are a lot of technical and medical aspects. The sooner the decision is made, the more probable is that we witness this flight," he said.
The flight to Mars "is a more ambitious and prestigious goal" than the flight to the Moon. "I think that the flight to Mars, to asteroids is more interesting from the engineering, medical and biological points of view. So a large part of our research is very intensive," the academic said.