Hyderabad: The United States Space Research centre NASA aspires to put a man and set up a space civilisation on Mars by 2037. While addressing the 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Michael Griffin, Administrator of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said, “We have a long-term plan to put a man on Mars by 2037.”

Mr. Griffin said the NASA looked to celebrate the IAC centennial meeting on the 4th planet from the sun (Mars).

Lecturing at an interactive gathering of space heads, Griffin delineated NASA’s challenging future plan, which involved establishing a space civilisation.

The US space organization is looking away from the moon and Mars into the planet system.

“With manned mission to moon from 2020 onwards and Mars a decade later, we want to build a space civilisation for tomorrow,” he said.

Expressing the need for greater private investment in launch vehicles to lessen space transportation costs, he felt space tourism held the key in order to make low-priced access possible to space.

“It is the economics that we should see rather than the benefits of international cooperation,” he said literally closing out affiliations with other countries in searching of outer space.

Griffin brushed off a doubt on NASA’s role in regulating space tourism noticing that there was no such provision in the US laws.

He told that the international space station being constructed in trajectory would offer a ‘toehold in space’ from where human beings can take a trip to the moon and from there to Mars.