But traveling to Mars is more difficult. It is 35 million miles away Franklin Chang Diaz, a former NASA scientist, is developing a rocket that will send a shuttle into space at the speed of 55 kilometers per second. The trip from the Earth to Mars will be reduced from 6 to 8 months to 39 days. NASA, the U.S. space agency, announced that someday people may even live on Mars. But before that happens, many questions will have to be answered.