The Nation - News from June 23, 1987

Astronaut Sally K. Ride unveiled a plan for six astronauts to make a quick one-year round-trip “sprint mission” to Mars starting as early as the year 2000. The proposal would cut a year or two off estimates for the duration of such a flight. The Mars “initiative” is one of four programs devised by Ride and her staff as possible goals for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the next two decades. The others are an intensive study of Earth from orbit, stepped up robotic exploration of the solar system and a return to the moon in 2000. Ride’s formal report is to go to NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher on Aug. 1.