Mitch E. Daniels, Purdue university's 12th president, is trying to persuade the Congress committee at putting America`s space program on a flight path to Mars.

He did so as he co-chaired a National Research Council study on the value of manned space flight. The study concluded that the space flight involves a lot of risk and expense and so should only be taken up if some all new achievement is on the mind which according to the study panel would be Mars landing.

Daniels believes that the Mars mission will indeed be huge and would take up at least 30 years and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Regarding the same, House lawmakers met on Wednesday to discuss the ways to have Congress committed to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into a decades-long plan to send humans to Mars. They concluded that it should not be a big problem as the money would be spread over three decades or more, and money spent on such an investment would be worth it from the point of view of technological breakthrough and knowledge.

"We're going to have to hold hands. Not just the first Congress that agrees to [the plan], but that's got to be transmitted somehow to those who follow," said Daniels.

Further, Daniels added that it is not the natural state of affairs to expect a constantly changing Congress to sustain support for a long-term, costly and experimental project. But this case is different so they are going to try their best efforts to urge the Congressmen to invest in NASA'S Mars mission.