Mission To Mars: Will Humans Visit The Red Planet By 2030? NASA’s Chief Administrator Steve Jurczyk believes the agency could be ready to send humans to Mars by the late 2030s. To make that a reality, researchers need to determine if life ever existed on Mars, if the planet has resources future explorers could use, and gain an understanding of Mars’ climate and geology. NASA’s new Perseverance rover will be a major step towards human exploration of Mars. Equipped with some of the most advanced scientific equipment, this rover will search for evidence to determine whether life ever existed on Mars, and a host of other experiments including a device capable of converting Mars’ atmosphere into breathable oxygen.