A number of critical sociological and technical elements must come together for a serious commitment to be undertaken for a manned Mars mission by a nation, or by the world of nations. The three required elements to commit to such a mission are: strong political leadership; the availability of the proper level of financial resources; and, lastly, the technical capability to pursue this goal. Other major elements that are not necessarily required for a commitment to a manned Mars mission, but could provide additional rational for such a mission, are: to investigate and exploit potential commercial and/or scientific payoff(s) by colonizing Mars; or the need to colonize Mars for the survival of civilization if there is a catastrophic event that takes place on Earth, such as a collision from a large asteroid. If one examines past great exploration initiatives, such as Columbus discovering America or the manned moon mission landings, the three major elements to support these historic initiatives did come together successfully. By examining these and other similar exploration initiatives, extensive insight can be gained in understanding the levels of technical risk that were considered acceptable to commit to such historic endeavors. When these initiatives were undertaken their technical risk levels were well below those typically considered acceptable for state-of-the-art aerospace systems. It is likely that because of the technical complexity and large investment required to perform a successful manned Mars mission, levels of the technical risk that are comparable to these other historic exploration endeavors will have to be accepted, if such a mission is to be undertaken in the next 25 to 30 years.

This paper will attempt to identify the level of acceptable technical risk that were associated with some of these past historic exploration endeavors, and discuss how these findings can be used as criteria to help guide the commitment decision to undertake a manned mission to Mars. Additionally, a top-level discussion on how risk management methods can be used to track Mars mission risk will also be addressed.