Before Wernher von Braun designed the mammoth Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the Moon, the German rocket scientist nursed a dream to see men travel to Mars. In the 1940s, he started studying different Mars missions that were ahead of their time but feasible with the technology and techniques he had at his disposal at the time.

NASA is calling the test flight of its new heat shield made from high-tech balloons an "unqualified success." The small capsule, called the Inflatable Re-Entry Vehicle Experiment 3 (IRVE-3), deployed its inflatable heat shield and re-entered Earth's atmosphere from suborbital space at a screaming hypersonic speed of Mach 10.

It's a lofty task ahead of you — attempting to land the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. This after a journey even hardened NASA engineers are calling "seven minutes of terror." Lucky for you, you can get in on the mission virtually, without having to risk billions of space bucks.

Would you sign up for a trip to the Red Planet? That may be a very real option sometime soon: the Mars One Project wants to ship out a crew of four by 2023. How? By securing funds after "creating the biggest media event ever" surrounding the mission, and by sending waves of settlers to go live on Mars.