<P> Numerous private companies attempted human spaceflight programs in an effort to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize . The first private human spaceflight took place on 21 June 2004, when SpaceShipOne conducted a suborbital flight . SpaceShipOne captured the prize on 4 October 2004, when it accomplished two consecutive flights within one week . SpaceShipTwo, launching from the carrier aircraft White Knight Two, is planned to conduct regular suborbital space tourism . </P> <P> Most of the time, the only humans in space are those aboard the ISS, whose crew of six spends up to six months at a time in low Earth orbit . </P> <P> NASA and ESA use the term "human spaceflight" to refer to their programs of launching people into space . These endeavors have also been referred to as "manned space missions," though because of gender specificity this is no longer official parlance according to NASA style guides . </P> <P> NASA is developing a plan to land humans on Mars by the 2030s . The first step in this mission begins sometime during 2020, when NASA plans to send an unmanned craft into deep space to retrieve an asteroid . The asteroid will be pushed into the moon's orbit, and studied by astronauts aboard Orion, NASA's first human spacecraft in a generation . Orion's crew will return to Earth with samples of the asteroid and their collected data . In addition to broadening America's space capabilities, this mission will test newly developed technology, such as solar electric propulsion, which uses solar arrays for energy and requires ten times less propellant than the conventional chemical counterpart used for powering space shuttles to orbit . </P>

When was the last time humans went to space