NASA Administrator Bolden was asked about Mr. Kraft’s comments.

CHARLES BOLDEN: “I can’t comment on what he said. We’re planning on a mission, you know, a series of missions that take us progressively toward a human mission to Mars in the twenty-thirties.”

Mister Kraft supports calls to build bases on the Moon before sending humans to Mars.

CHRIS KRAFT: “We know how to go back to the Moon; it’s a reasonable program; it’s a feasible program; it can be done with today’s capabilities.”

In fact, NASA planned to send humans back to the Moon, but many scientists objected to the plan. They said it should be bigger. Two years ago, President Obama cancelled the plan.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: David Alexander directs the Space Institute at Rice University in Texas. He blames NASA’s problems on politicians who control the agency’s budget.

DAVID ALEXANDER: “A lot of people blame NASA for not having a plan or not having this and that, but, actually, they have lots of plans based that they’ve worked on based on what they have been told to do by Congress and various Congresses over the years.”

But NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver says many members of Congress support space exploration. She believes that Congress will give the agency the money to send humans to Mars. She says sending humans there has been a goal of NASA for many years.