Why make plans for simply setting foot on Mars when we could be preparing for spending years there? It may sound ridiculous to you, but not to aerospace company Lockheed Martin. The company revealed a plan at a May 2016 conference detailing how humans could become an interplanetary species by the year 2028. Lockheed Martin gave a proposal to NASA describing a laboratory that orbits Mars. Humans would populate the laboratory by 2028, but would not set foot on the red planet until the 2030s. But from the laboratory, Lockheed Martin suggests that with its plan, astronauts at the Base Camp will be able to control rovers that explore the Martian surface in real time. Learn more about our efforts to travel to Mars below.