A panel will present a rough budget for a manned Mars mission at this week's Humans to Mars conference, and the experts say the project could be completed for far less than the $1 trillion of urban legend.

Estimating about 20 years of preparation, the group of NASA, industry and academic experts say a manned mission to the Red Planet could feasibly be funded out of the space agency's current budget, National Geographic reported.  

"One of our goals has been to destroy that '$1 trillion to send a human to Mars' myth, and we have," said Chris Carberry, executive director of the nonprofit ExploreMars, which is organizing the Humans to Mars conference held this week.

The long-term program would take about two decades and cost around $80 billion to $100 billion, according to the panel's estimate.

"It's feasible, it's affordable, and it can be done without impacting the federal budget or the NASA budget," Carberry said, as quoted by National Geographic. "This message is getting across, and there's more support now in Congress and the public for [sending] humans to Mars than ever before." 

In a world where autonomous cars and drones are becoming more prevalent, some scientists wonder if humans need to be sent to Mars at all.

But those in support of the manned mission hope the streamlined plan will sway any objections; scientists have been scaling back their plans at least for the first mission to Mars.

"We don't need to carry out every activity humans want to do on Mars-we just have to get there and back," NASA senior scientist and panel member Harley Thronson said. "By focusing only on what we need to do, we achieve enormous cost savings."   

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