Mars flyby and rendezvous with the flyby segment transferring the crew over. (see also Mars Excursion Module (MEM)) Alternately, a flyby-only human mission is also possible, without detaching at Mars, but to slingshot around Mars and back to Earth. In July 1965, Mariner 4 achieved a flyby of Mars with a return of data, providing the public and scientists with dramatically closer images of Mars. During the flyby Mariner 4 took 21 pictures amounting to about 1% of the surface of Mars. Mars was not globally mapped until the Mariner 9 orbiter, which over the course of 1972 to 1973 took thousands
Mars The probe will make a global study of the Martian atmosphere. Several plans for a human mission to Mars have been proposed throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, but no active plan has an arrival date sooner than the 2020s. SpaceX founder Elon Musk presented a plan in September 2016 to, optimistically, launch space tourists to Mars in 2024 at an estimated development cost of . In October 2016, President Barack Obama renewed U.S. policy to pursue the goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s, and to continue using the International Space Station as a