Links tagged with “Space Travel”
Mars is Hard
IEEE Spectrum goes through just how difficult it would be to get humans to Mars:
The shortest one-way trip, using conventional chemical propulsion, would take six months. If you include the time spent on Mars waiting for the two planets to move back into optimal alignment and also the trip home, the total mission would last at least two and a half years. The crew would have to endure extremes of boredom, isolation, and radiation, and they would require a vast amount of fuel and rations packed into a vessel sturdy enough to shield them from the harshness of space. Simply landing a spacecraft safely on a planet with an atmosphere and substantial gravity poses stunning challenges. And then there’s the matter of keeping the crew alive on the Martian surface.
Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, and as JFK said, we do these things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”