Researchers and scientists from around the country will come together at ASU this week to discuss the future of the exploration of Mars.

The meeting, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, is in preparation to put together the Planetary Decadal Survey, which outlines possible missions and is submitted to Congress for approval.

Robert Burnham, spokesman for ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration said the survey is a document that will ultimately cover all aspects of exploration in the solar system.

The survey will be used as an outline for space exploration from 2013 to 2022 and will be presented to Congress in 2011.

“[The survey] is a powerful document which will have a strong say in what this country does for space exploration,” Burnham said.

ASU’s panel will focus exclusively on Mars, while panels throughout the rest of the U.S. will discuss other bodies within the solar system.

Burnham said he expects to discuss whether life once existed on Mars.

“Mars has gotten a lot of attention because if you’re going to find life out there, it’s most likely going to be on Mars,” said Burnham.

Andrew Britton, an Earth and science exploration senior, said he plans to attend the panel and has interest in further exploring Mars for signs of life.

“Currently most of our missions are guided by the possibility of life either living on Mars or [having] lived on Mars in the past,” he said. “Search for life is always an important goal and achievement that humans would like to reach so that we’re not alone in the universe.”

Britton said he has hopes that a sample of Martian soil could be retrieved for analysis.

“There’s always the possibility of bringing a sample back, which would not only be a scientific gain but an engineering achievement as well, so that scientists can study it,” he said.

Britton said he is excited about what these meetings mean for the future of Mars exploration and has hopes it would strengthen the Mars program.

“If you want to continue the Mars program, you want … that ‘one day, we’ll go back’ [idea] because for the program to continue you want to always have that 15 years of push-back to do more in the future,” he said. “We’ve done a lot on Mars, and scientists and engineers have to be creative to continue the exploration.”

ASU Regents’ Professor Philip Christensen is the panel’s chairman.

Christensen’s work — including three scientific instruments he designed — is currently being used for Mars exploration.

Scientists from organizations including National Academy of Sciences, the European Space Agency, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as well as other universities will be attending the discussion panel, which is also open to the public.

Britton said the fact that these discussions are public will benefit space exploration.

“Public outreach is very important to NASA and any planetary mission since it’s all [funded by] tax dollars. Some citizens don’t know what goes on at NASA and if they don’t know, they can’t really appreciate how that money is being spent,” Britton said.

The final day of the panel will be a closed session where only scientists and research professionals will meet to conclude the session.

“The idea is that scientists come to a consensus as to what the biggest problems are, which ones are most ‘attackable’ and what are the most fruitful ones to attack right now,” Burnham said.

Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu.