It has been a high objective that the United States leaders have set their gaze during generations, and President Donald Trump began his second term by reaffirming his goal of reaching the red planet.
“And we will pursue our destiny manifest in the stars, throwing American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars,” he said during his opening speech on January 20.
Elon Musk, the CEO of the Spacex Space Technology Company, this time has the president’s ear, suggesting that we will see an even more difficult impulse to make the trip of 140 million miles to Mars.
“Do you imagine how incredible it will be that American astronauts propose the flag on another planet for the first time?” Musk said the day of the inauguration.
NASA’s Herculean effort will be needed to make a mission to Mars a reality, experts told ABC News. You must build on the Artemis program, which Trump established in 2017 to build a human presence on the moon, so that people step Mars, according to NASA.
“The current NASA Mars’s exploration approach demands to use missions in and around the Moon under the Artemis campaign to prepare for future human missions to Mars,” said a spokesman for the agency in a statement sent to ABC News. “We are eager to listen more about the Trump administration plans for our agency and expand the exploration for everyone, including the sending of US astronauts in the first human mission to the red planet.”
However, the mission cannot simply be launched when crews and technology are ready. Scott Hubbard directed the Mars program of the agency From 2000 to 2001He served as director of his AMES Research Center for 4 years and was in NASA Executive Administration for 20 years.
He pointed out that there are specific windows for when to launch the mission. When the earth and Mars align in their orbits around the sun, the distance and energy required for a spacecraft travel to Mars is minimized.
The planet Mars is shown in this image of the Viking Orbitter I Voyage in 1998.
USGS/JPL/NASA
The next window is just a year and a half.
“Even with the most powerful rockets we have, there is a 20 -day window every 26 months,” he told ABC News. “And that’s it. I mean, it’s literally being there or forgetting.”
Every time the mission takes off, it will be incredibly challenging resistance test full of problems never before, requiring that a crew of astronauts dares enough to make the trip.
Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams have been testing that. The couple has been in space for nine months, with their 8 -day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) obtaining an unexpected extension for security reasons.
“Then, once we made the transition not to return to our spacecraft, we have made the crew member, in the international crew, members of the International Space Station,” Wilmore told ABC News. “And that is what we have been doing since we have been here.”
Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Sunita “Suni” Williams and Nick Hague, who are at the International Space Station, discuss the challenges of sending humans to Mars.
ABC News
Williams said that this type of flexibility will be key to anyone who wants to go to Mars.
“I would say that nothing comes as planned and is ready for that,” he told ABC News. “You know, a small challenge, a little adversity gets the best of us.”
This experience can someday be useful for astronauts who make the 7 -month trip to Mars, he told ABC News his ISS crew partner, Nick Hague, ABC News.
“You know, be up here, it is not a unique mission. It is not a unique trip to Mars,” he said. “We are part of a long legacy of exploration, human exploration, space, and we are doing our little part to try to advance in that.”
The ISS team is investigating some of the logistics challenges that the long trip to Mars would present.
“How do we support ourselves? We can’t pack all the resources we need on a trip to Mars and maintain a long mission,” Hague said. “So we will have to discover how to cultivate the food we are going to need.”
Astronauts would also need to replace the equipment that breaks during the trip.
“Then you can’t carry each spare part,” Wilmore said. “You will have to have some way of additive manufacturing: 3D impression.”
The trip also expose astronauts to conditions that could lead to multiple health problems, including the potential risk of cancer and mental health problems, along with bone and muscle problems, he told ABC News, the Rihana Bokhari space physiologist. Arriving to Earth could also take time, he said.
“That delay in communication will be quite large when it comes to Mars, about 20 minutes in every sense further,” he said.
Putting a foot on the fourth planet from the sun can be the goal, but it is only half of the battle. A round trip mission would take at least three years.
“In addition to transportation, he needs a habitat. We have not yet built a place for astronauts to live during the 6 or 7 months that would take there and have a really reliable life support,” said Hubbard, the former protagonist of NASA Mars, A ABC News.
On this screen, obtain a video taken by the NASA perseverance rover, the agency’s nane helicopter of the agency is shown before taking the flight on Mars, on April 19, 2021.
JPL/NASA
Hubbard believes that NASA should be thinking in the long term for its first manned mission to Mars.
“Not all opportunities are the same,” he said. “And if I had to look until 2033, you see an opportunity that comes only once every 15 years. You can get Mars the greatest Mass from any of these other 20 -day windows.”
Taking into account the period of time for the window from now on, Hubbard said that Apollo’s missions followed a similar timeline, from the first tests in 1961 to Apollo 11 Landing on the Moon in 1969.
“And not only the technological advance is going to take but also the political will,” he said. “It will make people see that this is part of what we do as human beings.”
