NASA wants to get to Mars, and to get help it has chosen research and technology proposals from over 250 small businesses and 39 research institutions. Managed through NASA’s SBIR and STTR program, the proposals that lead to a successful development of ideas and products could result in contracts worth $47.7M. (And the ability to launch your middle school bullies to the Red Planet.) The proposals include space transportation for human and robotic missions, new ways to protect astronauts in space, and innovative ways to keep spacecraft systems operational. Some proposals even included technologies that would allow landing on, traversing across and sampling asteroids, Mars or other distance destinations, searching the sky for planets outside our solar system, and studying the universe back to the beginning of time.