NASA officials are planning to put astronauts on Mars in the 2030s, outlining broad steps for a mission to the Red Planet and a "human presence" on its surface.

The steps are similar to the Mercury and Gemini programs, William H. Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, told a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcommittee on Wednesday, Voice of America reported.

The plans are intended to "allow us to make sustained progress toward a human presence on the surface of Mars," said Gerstenmaier, as quoted by Voice of America.

The Mercury and Gemini programs were important transitions on the way to putting men on the moon through the Apollo missions.

NASA is planning to test new spacecraft in just three years.

"There is real hardware in manufacture for the path to Mars," Gerstenmaier told senators Wednesday.

In the 2017 mission, NASA will send out the Space Launch System rocket and Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle for an unmanned test. The spacecraft will later be used to transport people to Mars.

The agency's first stage of research will be learning ways to keep space crews safe during long flights into space as well as finding affordable methods of bringing both cargo and astronauts into low Earth orbit.

The second vital step, which was approved by the House subcommittee on Wednesday, involves NASA scientists putting an asteroid into orbit around the moon. The agency aims to redirect a space rock into lunar orbit, put astronauts on the asteroid and then bring the space crew back to Earth.

"We're going to grab a piece of the solar system, we're going to deflect it around the moon and insert it into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon where our crews can go visit," said Gerstenmaier, as quoted by Voice of America.

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