Many in the space community are still beaming over last weeks launch of Orion, the historic unmanned test flight that NASA said touched off a new era in human space exploration.

But at a congressional hearing Tuesday, a government watchdog report and some skeptical members of Congress brought some of the grandiose talk of a trip to Mars down to Earth, saying that the program still faces daunting challenges that NASA has struggled to overcome.

The Government Accountability Offices Cristina Chaplain said in testimony that the agencys human exploration program is plagued by inconsistent and unrealistic schedule goals, as well as significant technical and funding issues.

And while members of Congress were quick to congratulate NASA officials for Fridays test flight a 41/2-hour mission that sent a spacecraft designed for humans farther than any has gone in more than 40 years they also took aim at a program to build a new heavy rocket.

Known as the Space Launch System (SLS), the rocket NASA plans for its future deep space missions is still being built and isnt expected to have its first test flight for another four years. (Fridays mission was aboard a Delta IV Heavy rocket built by the United Launch Alliance.)

Orion, the NASA spacecraft designed to travel to asteroids and Mars, completed its first test flight on Friday, bringing NASA one step closer to a manned mission to the Red Planet. (AP)

After its first test flight in 2018 originally planned for 2017 but delayed because of funding issues SLS is then expected to perform its first manned flight in 2021.

But after that flight, future mission destinations remain uncertain, the GAO said.

Orions maiden flight Friday was a long-awaited triumph for an agency that has been unable to fly humans into space since the retirement of the space shuttle three years ago. American astronauts have been hitching rides to the International Space Station aboard a Russian spacecraft at more than $70million a seat.

The test flight seen by thousands was a huge step in advancing human exploration, NASA said, and ultimately landing a person on Mars.

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After historic Orion flight, NASA still faces challenges, GAO says