Hi, I'm Matt Damon.
I play astronaut Mark Watney in the The Martian.
In the story my character is accidently stranded
on Mars.
Sending people to Mars and returning them
safely is the challenge of a generation.
The whole world held its breath when the Curiosity
rover landed in 2012.
The boot prints of astronauts will follow
those rover tracks thanks to innovations happening
today.
NASA's Journey to Mars begins on the International
Space Station, some 250 miles overhead, where
we're learning how the humans can thrive over
long periods without gravity.
Future round trips to Mars could take 500
days or longer.
This year NASA launched the first one-year
mission to the International Space Station
to help prepare for those future journeys.
Here at home, people are working across the
country on the new Orion spacecraft and Space
Launch System rocket that will carry astronauts
farther than ever before,
When we invent new technologies for exploration,
it benefits all of humanity.
But more than that, the journey to Mars will
forever change our history books, rewriting
what we know about the Red Planet, and expanding
a human presence deeper into the solar system.
Follow NASA's Journey to Mars at www.nasa.gov.
