What seemed not only impossible but a complete scientific heresy a century ago, now is a matter of 10 years. The manned mission to Mars is planned for the year 2030 with the first parts of the strategic plan being already completed. The journey to Mars mission is supposed to give us a further insight into the question whether life exists on other planets.
The grandiose project undertaken by NASA saw its birth in the mid-20th century. Back then the optimistic scientists made a prediction that they would be able to put the first human on Mars in the next 30 years. The prediction was too far from reality as nobody recognized all the difficulties and complications of such a task. Nevertheless now in 2016, NASA again states that in the next 30 years, the organization will be able to send the first manned mission to Mars. This time, though, the strategic outline has been approved by the government and set as a goal for the agency by the parliament. The Mars has been already studied by orbiters and robots, but yet the mission of putting a man on Mars is far more difficult as there is a human life involved.
The fist steps of this journey to Mars have been already accomplished. The cosmonauts on International Space Station have been testing the specificities of human body behavior in outer space for the past year. The technology of creating oxygen, which will be needed for the rocket launch from Mars back to Earth, is also in the state of active development. The test of Space Launch System (SLS), which is to become the biggest launch system, is planned for 2020. Asteroid Redirection project to study materials from outer space and test solar propulsion engines is scheduled for 2025. The Mars Transfer Spacecraft that will be used as in-space habitat and a hub for astronauts traveling to Mars is also being developed and tested right now.
The multiple steps into which the manned mission to Mars is broke down will ensure the highest degree of safety and certainty of success for astronauts, who will be chosen to travel to Mars.
A question one might ask is how this project important to regular people, who find themselves far from understanding the scientific and philosophic underpinning of the journey to Mars. The true practical importance of the manned mission to Mars lies in the abundance of technologies that it creates and tests. It has been known for many decades that technologies that once were used only for scientific and military purposes can make a substantial change in the everyday life of people. One of such technologies was Internet, which was at some point developed by scientists to relief the difficulties of exchanging the data. In terms of the number of innovations that mission to Mars is supposed to test, it is an unprecedented project in the history. Traveling in outer space without oxygen, with nearly zero gravitation, and sustaining life on Mars, with its unpredictable climate (can be as high as 20 degrees Celcius, or cold as cold as -55 degrees Celcius), can teach us some important lessons regarding how to manage our own planet’s climate. It is hard to overestimate the importance of the journey to Mars for the science of climatology and sustainability. With all the scarcity of the resources needed for human life in the outer space, if we can make it to Mars and colonize it we can then significantly increase our efficiency here on Earth in terms of energy usage.
Sources:
Wilson, Jim. “Journey to Mars Overview.” NASA. NASA, 11 Oct. 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
Daines, Gary. “NASA’s Journey to Mars.” NASA. NASA, 14 Sept. 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
@michaeldwall. “A Manned Mission to Mars Is Closer to Reality Than Ever: NASA Chief.” Space.com. Space.com, 18 Sept. 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.