2014 has been one hell of a year for NASA. The agency has brought up monumental leaps in terms of its plans to reach Mars as well as the development of innovative technologies and scientific discoveries that would also help in propelling the agency into a new era of Space exploration.

Charles Bolden, one of NASA’s administrators has said that the agency is highly committed towards the success of the Mars mission. And the agency has made lots of progress in order to gear up for the next generation of space travel.

He said: “We have made progress by leaps and bounds this year in regard of the journey to Mars. We have also issued contracts to those private American companies who would be able to return human space flights back onto our soil. We have also actively advanced our space technology systems part of which is our state of the art Orion space craft. The space craft successfully completed its first test flight this year and would be able to carry our astronauts into deeper space. We have also made tremendous progress in a bid to create greener and quieter airplanes that would ensure air travel becomes more efficient. We have also enhanced our knowledge of the Earth as well as those prevailing in our solar system and beyond.”

“The next big thing that we have planned is taking humans to Mars. We are also looking to capture an asteroid and bring it in the Moon’s orbit, so that we could send in researchers via Orion on it to collect samples. The coming decade would present exciting opportunities for space related activities.”