If a space ship could land on the moon, why can't we land on mars? and instead we have to drop in?

Because it is very hard and costly to go even to the moon, and Mars is much further away. Most of the rocket weight will be the fuel to get there and back, not to mention the oxygen, food, water and other things for the astronaughts. With such distances, communication would lag severly, making control very hard. Most importantly, it would cost an insane amount of money with little or no return value.If a space ship could land on the moon, why can't we land on mars? and instead we have to drop in?
We could land on Mars and technically this is not a problem. The question is how to leave Mars ?If a space ship could land on the moon, why can't we land on mars? and instead we have to drop in?
Well, first of all, mars is a lot further away than the moon is. Secondly, mars has an atmosphere, which means you would need to be able to withstand the heat of rentry, so no little lunar landers this time. Also, the gravity is a lot stronger on mars than on the moon, so you would need to be able to slow your decent and land similarly to how we land on earth... only this landing would have to be done without a runway.





I think that the biggest issue by far though is not related at all to landing on mars, but how do you propose we get off mars once we land there? Think about the size of the rockets needed to escape earth's gravity. You would need to be able to bring a setup like that to mars with you. The moon had much less gravity, so it wasn't as big of a deal to escape there.
well the biggest reason is the distance, we can reach the moon in several days. it would take a couple months for a spacecraft to get to mars. and well there is technology to conquer that hurdel, NASA isnt and probably will never get the funds it needs to create a spacecraft and the technologies needed for such a lengthy spaceflight
Time and consumables...





It is a much longer trip to Mars than to the moon. The entire trip using current technology would be about 2.5 years.





The time on the surface would be as little as 30 days during which time there are consumables (Air, Food, Water) that are required.





The effect of a long time in zero/microgravity are not good for humans.





It can be done but there is little interest in it as the returns are not significant..
The moon has no atmosphere so parachutes would not slow down the landing craft, so we use rocket thrust to ';land'; on the moon. Mars has an atmosphere so parachutes work. We could still ';land' on Mars using rockets, but taking the fuel needed to land adds cost and weight, weight we would have to get off the earth.
Look at the space ship that landed on the moon here.





http://www.flickr.com/photos/fakedmoonlandings





Good luck landing that anywhere!
As many here have already pointed out, the travel time takes very long. If my memory serves me right, the 1st spacecraft launched on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project took almost 7 full months to travel from Earth to Mars. The 2nd one travelled a couple of days shorter.





The project would have been very huge and costly to send a human being forth and back. It would require a full sustenance of life for at least 14 months just for the travel alone. The entry of the spacecraft to the Mars atmosphere may not be a big problem since we've already had successful missions where we landed there two robotic rovers. To escape Mars back to Earth could be a big challenge though. Because of the stronger gravitational pull on Mars compared to our Moon, it could require a more powerful rocket boosters (think SRBs) and more fuel. Which could be a challenge to tug along and land safely.





Once we develop a spacecraft technology that could cut the travel time down to a couple of days (or maybe hours, wow), and is compact but powerful enough to escape gravitational pull without using fuel, like maybe a Solar Sail, then we should be seeing manned flights to Mars and many other unexplored planets.
Atmosphere.
We do not have a space ship capable of surviving the gasses that make up the atmosphere on mars and even if we landed a ship there, we don't know how to great a suit that would be breathable on a planet that has a gaseous atmosphere as well as no ship would be able to stand the trip back out of the atmosphere.





maybe someday nasa will stop spending millions of dollars on bots to send to mars that end up just breaking anyway and open a ';saving account'; until they have enough to build a ship that can travel to and from mars as well as a breathable suit.
It's not a question of wether we can or can't land on mars but how do we get there? Travel time to the moon was two weeks, to mars its several years! How do you fill up a space ship with enough supplies to last for that long. Plus the crew you send would have to be male and female and they would have to get along quite well.
Cost has to do with why it is taking so long, but not really way we have to ';drop in.'; We could land on the moon because there is no atmosphere, therefore, no resistance to the craft save a little gravity. Mars, on the other hand, doses have atmosphere to add resistance and a lot of complication to the landing. Also, it has a lot more gravity then the moon, (not to mention the massive amount of supplies they need) so a soft landing will be much harder.
I'm somewhat confused by what you mean. If you're asking why we haven't sent people to Mars yet, then its because it takes much longer to get to Mars then it does to get to the moon (Months as opposed to around a week for a round trip to and from the moon). You would also have to have a ship and enough food/water/other resources to keep the astronauts strong and healthy (and sane; doing nothing for over 6 months can make people go crazy).


If you mean why do we land on the moon and ';drop'; in on Mars, its because the moon is smaller and therefore has less gravity. Mars is bigger with a larger gravity affect.


However, make no mistake, the moon does still have enough gravity that when a landing occurs the lander needs to counter that force with boosters to slow itself down.


Hope this helps.
well it cost millions to go to the moon imagine how much will cost to go to mars and i think we scare to find life in mars .
It is not as much that we can't land on mars it is more a coast and time issue. You would have to have a ship that was big enough for them to move around in ideally because the trip takes about 3 month. You also have to worry about how they will get back.