is zero room for error. about 17 minutes from now, if all goes as planned, the rover will touchdown on the martian surface. but it takes 14 minutes for a signal to travel from mars to earth, so best case scenario, confirmation will come in about 31 minutes. we expect pictures around 2 a.m. eastern. now, joining us from the laboratory in california. in moscow r where russian space officials are closely following the development and science correspondent david brodie joins us from edge water, new jersey. but first we will go to john zarrella there live in pasadena. john, we are about to enter the period that officials are calling seven minutes of terror, where they will not know if curiosity is alive or dead. that s exactly right, john. this is it. they ve all been using the olympic term that they have to stick this landing. as you pointed out, that this maneuver to entering the atmosphere of mars, traveling at 13,200 miles an hour, in less than ten minutes from now, they ll
america live. there are major developments this afternoon in the battle of forcing religious institutions to offer contraception coverage to employees. the president now says that will not be the case. so does the fight end here, or is it just heating up? plus, a new effort to help americans who lost their homes or oh more than their homes are worth. could this end up hurting our fragile economy? and men may be from mars, but they won t be going there any time soon. details on a plan to cut nasa funding. plus we ll ask a former astronaut about the future of u.s. space exploration. by the mid 2030s i believe we can send human humans to orbit mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on mars will follow. and i expect to be around to see it. [applause] k that that s something that can happen to you. i m on a bayer aspirin regimen.
fighting uphill battle trying to save the trips to mars. now he says to me it is totally irrational and unjustified. we re the only country on this planet that has the demonstrated ability to land on another planet, namely mars. it is a national prestige issue. wiler says he is frustrated because he thinks these mars trips jell nicely with the president s policy of increasing foreign collaboration. martha? martha: looks like nasa may not be the lead at least on sending men to mars in this scenario, peter. reporter: right. it is not clear necessarily how this will affect the united states ability to send americans to mars. remember less than two years ago it was the president that said this. by the mid 2030s i think we can send humans to orbit mars and return them safely to earth. i believe a landing on mars will follow and i expect to be around to see it [applause] reporter: again no word just yet exactly how these
can send humans to orbit mars and return safely to earth. landing on mars will follow and i expect to be around to see it. [ applause ] in the short term american astronaut wills rely on spacecraft from private corporations and russia. apollo xi astronaut buzz aldrin supports the new plan. he rode on air force 1 to cape canaveral but was apparently not impressed by a plan that couldn t make it into orbit. our top political story, also from the president. he made a stop in miami speaking at a democratic national committee fundraiser. no surprise, he had taxes and tea partiers on his mind. since today happens to be tax day [ laughter ] i should just point out that one-third of the recovery act went to tax cuts. tax cuts that strengthened the
can send humans to orbit mars and return them safely to earth. and a landing on mars will follow. i expect to be around to see it. that s optimistic. we all hope to be there in 2030, i think. my question is, are we going to get to mars? and what does it take that we don t have? well, we have to develop new technologies. right now, we send humans to mars, it takes us ten months to get there. chris, one of my crewmates is developing a plasma rocket to take us to mars in 39 days. if you went under conventional technology to mars, whenever they have a solar explosion, our astronauts would get fried. you ve got to create the kind of protection, probably a magnetic field, that will protect you from that solar radiation. those are the kinds of things. we don t have it today. but the president setting us on a course, saying we re going there, we re going first to an