{"id":184056,"date":"2021-02-20T19:56:40","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T16:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/america-has-sent-five-rovers-to-mars-when-will-humans-follow\/"},"modified":"2021-02-20T19:56:40","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T16:56:40","slug":"america-has-sent-five-rovers-to-mars-when-will-humans-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/america-has-sent-five-rovers-to-mars-when-will-humans-follow\/","title":{"rendered":"#America has sent five rovers to Mars\u2014when will humans follow?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#America has sent five rovers to Mars\u2014when will humans follow?<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Radiation
\n Radiation will also be challenging on the planet, because of its ultra thin atmosphere and lack of a protective magnetosphere, so shelters will need to be well shielded, or even underground
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With its impeccable landing on Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance became the fifth rover to reach Mars\u2014so when can we finally expect the long-held goal of a crewed expedition to materialize?<\/p>\n


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NASA’s current Artemis program is billed as a “Moon to Mars” mission, and acting administrator Steve Jurczyk has reiterated his aspiration of “the mid-to-end of the 2030s” for American boots on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n

But while the trip<\/a> is technologically almost within grasp, experts say it’s probably still decades out because of funding uncertainties.<\/p>\n

Mars is hard<\/b><\/p>\n

Wernher von Braun, the architect of the Apollo program, started work on a Mars mission right after the Moon landing in 1969, but the plan, like many after it, never got off the drawing board.<\/p>\n

What makes it so hard? For a start, the sheer distance. <\/p>\n

Astronauts bound for Mars will have to travel about 140 million miles (225 million kilometers), depending on where the two planets are relative to each other.<\/p>\n

That means a trip that’s many months long, where astronauts will face two major health risks: radiation and microgravity.<\/p>\n

The former raises the lifetime chances of developing cancer while the latter decreases bone density and muscle mass.<\/p>\n

If things go wrong, any problems will have to be solved on the planet itself.<\/p>\n

‘It’s the details’ <\/b><\/p>\n

That said, scientists have learned plenty of lessons from astronauts’ missions to the Moon and to space stations.<\/p>\n

“We have demonstrated on Earth orbiting spacecraft the ability for astronauts to survive for a year and a half,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer for the Harvard\u2013Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.<\/p>\n

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\"Astronauts
\n Astronauts bound for Mars will have to travel about 140 million miles (225 million kilometers), depending on where the two planets are relative to each other
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The general<\/a> ideas of how to execute a Mars mission are in place, but “it’s the details” that are lacking, he added.<\/p>\n

One way to reduce the radiation exposure on the journey is getting there faster, said Laura Forczyk, the founder of space consulting firm Astralytical and a planetary scientist.<\/p>\n

This could involve using nuclear thermal propulsion which produces far more thrust than the energy produced by traditional chemical rockets.<\/p>\n

Another could be building a spacecraft with water containers strapp<\/a>ed to it that absorb space radiation, said McDowell.<\/p>\n

Once there, we’ll need to find ways to breathe in the 95-percent carbon dioxide atmosphere. Perseverance has an instrument on board to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, as a technical demonstration.<\/p>\n

Other solutions involve breaking down the ice at the planet’s poles into oxygen and hydrogen, which will also fuel rockets.<\/p>\n

Radiation will also be challenging on the planet, because of its ultra thin atmosphere and lack of a protective magnetosphere, so shelters will need to be well shielded, or even underground.<\/p>\n

Risk tolerance<\/b><\/p>\n

The feasibility also comes down to how much risk we are willing to tolerate, said G. Scott Hubbard, NASA’s first Mars program director who’s now at Stanford.<\/p>\n

During the Shuttle era, said Hubbard, “the demand was that the astronauts face no more than three percent increased risk in death.”<\/p>\n

“They have now raised that\u2014deep space missions are somewhere between 10 and 30 percent, depending on the mission, so NASA’s taking a more aggressive or open posture,” he added.<\/p>\n

That could involve raising the permissible level of total radiation astronauts can be exposed to over their lifetimes, which NASA is also considering, said Forczyk.<\/p>\n

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\"Musk
\n Musk has been developing the next-generation Starship rocket for the purpose\u2014though two prototypes blew up in spectacular fashion on their recent test runs
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Political will<\/b><\/p>\n

The experts agreed the biggest hurdle is getting buy-in from the US president and Congress.<\/p>\n

“If humanity as a species, specifically the American taxpayer, decides to put large amounts of money into it, we could be there by the 2030s,” said McDowell.<\/p>\n

He doesn’t think that’s on the cards, but said he would be surprised if it happened later than the 2040s, a conclusion shared by Forczyk.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden hasn’t yet outlined his Mars vision, though his spokeswoman Jen Pskai said this month the Artemis program had the administration’s “support.”<\/p>\n

Still, the agency is facing budget constraints and is not expected to meet its goal of returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, which would also push back Mars.<\/p>\n

SpaceX wildcard<\/b><\/p>\n

Could NASA be beaten to it by SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, who is targeting a first human mission in 2026?<\/p>\n

Musk has been developing the next-generation Starship rocket for the purpose\u2014though two prototypes blew up in spectacular fashion on their recent test runs.<\/p>\n

These might look bad, but the risks SpaceX is able to take, and NASA as a government agency can’t, gives it valuable data, argued Hubbard.<\/p>\n

That could eventually give SpaceX an edge over NASA’s chosen rocket, the troubled Space Launch System (SLS) which is beset by delays and cost overrun.<\/p>\n

But not even one of the richest people in the world can foot the entire bill for Mars themselves.<\/p>\n

Hubbard sees a public-private partnership as more likely, with SpaceX providing the transport and NASA solving the many other problems.<\/p>\n\n

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NASA test of mega Moon rocket engines cut short\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n America has sent five rovers to Mars\u2014when will humans follow? (2021, February 20)
\n retrieved 20 February 2021
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news<\/a>\/2021-02-america-rovers-marswhen-humans.html<\/p>\n

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