The race to put humans on Mars has been dealt a reality check, with experts from NASA and ESA insisting a successful mission is still decades away.

A new space race of sorts is in full swing, with corporations like SpaceX, Boeing and Mars One competing to be the first to mount a manned mission to the red planet.

SpaceX, founded by battery billionaire Elon Musk, is leading the pack, with plans to send humans to Mars within eight years.

Professor Mark McCaughrean, senior science adviser at the European Space Agency, said that aspiration is a stretch.

"Every time people say, 'well we're going to be doing it in five or six years', they keep saying that for a while until you realise they don't have the technology in place," Professor McCaughrean said.

"They don't have the money in place. They don't have the physics in place."

Dr Abigail Allwood, a planetary scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said sending humans to Mars will take far more complex technology than is currently available.

"It doesn't have an atmosphere. It doesn't have a hydrosphere," she said.

"It's completely lacking the fundamental building blocks, and to think that we could go there and make that into something habitable when we can't yet manage our own planet is the ultimate hubris."

Director of Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA, Jason Crusan, is hopeful of a successful mission, thanks to a new approach to space exploration.

"In the past you would have more of a military style leadership model or hierarchy of everything being done," he said.

"I think the role we are playing now is more like a conductor of an orchestra.

"Everyone plays their parts and there's a conductor there but you need the skill sets of every member of the orchestra."

Queenslander Dr Abigail Allwood is the first woman to be a principal scientist on the rover mission in 2020. ( 612 ABC Brisbane: David Curnow )

'Feasible within 10 years'

Mars One is just one of several corporations vying to take the next giant leap forward in space exploration.

Despite its critics, and there are many, the Dutch company has listed as a public company on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

It has also recently released blueprints for a Mars surface space suit.

Three years ago, Dianne McGrath was one of 200,000 people who expressed interest in a Mars One competition to win a one-way ticket to the red planet.

Now she is one of just 100 worldwide still in the running.

Ms McGrath believes Mars One is a contender because unlike other corporations, its astronauts do not plan on coming home.

"There's been over 44 missions since the 60s but they've all stayed or missed the planet. Nothing has come back," she said.

Dianne McGrath is a shortlisted astronaut candidate from Australia in the Mars One program. ( Facebook: Dianne McGrath )

"We can already get things to Mars, so the chance of going one way is much more feasible within 10 years."

Ms McGrath has four degrees and a PhD on the way.

"I've been fortunate enough over the years that I've been able to do things that assist society: working for Australian Government, the pharmaceutical industry," she said.

"So this is really just an extension of what I've always done, to do purposeful things. It's just at a galactic scale."

An 'inspirational point in the future'

Few involved in the Mars dream agree on how and when, if ever, humans will set foot there, but there is consensus about the need to attempt the mission.

"We're pushing for Mars because we need an inspirational point in the future," Jason Crusan said.

"We need that mountain over the hill. We need that far off land to go and explore."

That sentiment is shared by Dr Allwood.

"There needs to be a long-term push to achieve all of the miracles, the engineering and scientific achievements, that are needed before we can safely do it," she said.

Ms McGrath said, as a species, humans are quite lazy.

"But if we're sometimes inspired by something extraordinary, something great, then we allow ourselves to be great."