Will we reach Mars in the near future? And will we go back from there?
Last summer, the space vehicle Curiosity celebrated two years since landing on Mars - an impressive scientific and technological achievement and NASA says that this is only the beginning. Will we get to see human colonies on Mars? Or maybe it is more correct to ask when we will get to see human colonies on Mars?
Mars is the fourth planet in our solar system. Their diameter is about half the diameter of the Earth, their volume is about 15% of the Earth's volume and their mass is about 11% of the Earth's mass. Mars orbits the Sun in 687 Earth days. Yes, the years are longer on Mars. Even the day is a little longer: 24 hours and 37 minutes. For those born and raised on Mars, age 50 will be an extreme return age. Mars is also colder than Earth: minus 140 degrees Celsius in winter but 30 degrees on a summer day in the equatorial region, so the summer season can be wonderful there. And the views in it are sometimes reminiscent of the Negev. As we know, the reddish-brown-golden color of our little neighbor probably originates from oxidized iron, or rust. Its atmosphere contains mainly carbon dioxide, and we will therefore have to produce oxygen for the future inhabitants. On the other hand, the gravity is 62.5% less than on Earth, so even with the oxygen suit we can jump much higher.
Curiosity was sent to explore Mars as part of a much broader and more ambitious mission. The long-term goal is to allow astronauts to be sent to Mars and in the next step to even develop and build colonies on it. It seems that humanity is reaching a moment where leaving the earth for the purpose of settling the solar system, and in the future perhaps the galaxy as well, is the next logical and necessary step. Not long ago, it was the Greeks who sent sailing ships to colonize the Mediterranean basin. The Spanish and Portuguese came to America and the British went to India and China. The next generation of humanity will reach Mars.
NASA's timetables are already laid out in front of us: in 2012, Curiosity began its journey to the planet. Towards the end of 2014, the small Mayvin probe is expected to enter the coffee orbit around Mars and provide us with new and important information about the atmosphere and the radiation around it. In 2016, a research vehicle is expected to land on Mars as part of the InSight project, with the aim of answering the question of how planets are formed and thus providing additional important information on the way to settling Mars. Towards the end of 2016, the Europeans are preparing to launch a satellite to orbit Mars and in 2018 to land a motorized vehicle that will patrol Mars. In 2020, NASA plans to send Curiosity's replacement: an independent and more sophisticated science laboratory to tour Mars.
Unofficially, NASA spokesmen see 2030 as a year when we will see astronauts on a mission to Mars. However, some billionaires with technological inclinations have made it their goal to reach Mars even before that. For example, Elon Musk, who heads SpaceX, the company that builds launchers to launch spacecraft and satellites, expressed his desire to die on Mars (and not at the moment of landing). An ambitious project bordering on the delusional today is the Mars-1 project of the Dutch entrepreneur Bes Lansdorp, who set himself the goal of launching a one-way expedition to settle Mars in 2030. Experience shows that hallucinations become dreams and dreams become reality. Even if Mars-1 seems pretentious today, it is likely that in 2030 the dream will already seem much more realistic.
When I met Dr. Brigadier-General Pete Worden, Director of the NASA Ames Center in his office, even before the launch of Curiosity, I asked him a direct question: Will NASA launch a mission to establish colonies on Mars and how will it finance this ambitious operation? Dr. Worden replied with a smile. Of course we will colonize Mars, and the funding will not come from the American government. "Come and think about the first two colonies on Mars... we will call them for example... Pageville and Breen's Valley...".
From Warden's office window I could see two private jets from the fleet of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
About the author
Yankee Margalit, social entrepreneur, investor and high-tech person. Father of six. Chairman of SpaceIL, an Israeli non-profit organization working to land an Israeli spacecraft on the moon. Mostly curious.
The article was published with the permission of Scientific American Israel
23 תגובות
I think this is a somewhat complex idea, but possible and essential for the future of humanity,
due to population crowding in the future
So people come and say why isn't there a smart robot that will go to Mars and check it for us
It is likely that in order to have such a robot it is necessary to prepare one
And people like Haim say how come there isn't?
As if it goes without saying that there would be one because there is a need for someone to make one.
I think this is an excellent idea and instead of looking at life from an egoistic point of view
Sacrifice is necessary to promote a common future
"I personally would volunteer if I had the option"
The unidentified anonymous user is called Haim.
Thanks.
This article was written in 2013??
"Towards the end of 2014, the small Mayvin probe is expected to enter the coffee orbit around Mars and provide us with new and important information about the atmosphere and the radiation around it. In 2016, a research vehicle is expected to land on Mars as part of the InSight project, with the aim of answering the question of how planets are formed and thus providing additional important information on the way to colonizing Mars."
Sending people to Mars is an unforgivable crime by any standard. Beyond the aspect of 4 eccentrics with a card in one direction. It is clear that they will die if not after 68 days, they will not die of old age.
The crime is biological contamination of Mars, which will not allow any scientific research in the future. It is not clear to me why it is not possible to send smart robots to perform all the necessary scientific tasks. It's not just that we don't find any biological markers either on Mars or on any planet in the immediate vicinity. The chance of finding a biological entity in our galaxy is also small. The reason is simple. The complexity of such a large biological entity that includes: a. A super nova explosion. B. A gathering of mass in the form of a sun and around stars with a precise composition of the material ratio of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, chlorine, sodium, water, and everything else. third. A ball of mass that will hit the earth and move it by about 37 degrees, in order to create the seasons. d. May he have a moon to stabilize the rotation angle. God. to rotate at the correct speed. and. It will be located at the edge of the galaxy so that it will not be disturbed by damage from the masses running around. And a million more reasons.
So let sane people stand up and stop this crime.
We need mental flexibility, for example, to launch small sealed reactors (in such a way that if they crash, then there will be no disaster - shock absorbers, for example), which will provide an energy infrastructure for the first settlers. Or to send fuel for flights back to Earth. With Israel fixed, we could sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, build a reactor New and then tweeting about the treaty. And renewing an arsenal of nuclear weapons - safer and more advanced. This is an example of mental fixation in scientific development
To Eric
What you wrote about Venus is really interesting. But there is something even simpler and that is to colonize the oceans
in the future
XNUMXD printers in space stations will build spaceships and entire cities
Just like in the series Futsrama.
I like that the television industry predicts the future.
ארי
Don't treat idiots
To the lord of Venus, Mars and Jupiter - I would appreciate it if you put me on my astronomical mistake in my message, otherwise, to the administrators of the site - for your dedicated care (these messages are probably from the same person, who unless he has something to contribute to the discussion, is a troll).
Eric L
Maybe you want a business license in my core?
Eric L
How right Venus is. You don't know us at all, you've never paid us a courtesy visit and you act like a know-it-all. Go away! You have already embarrassed yourself in the entire solar system. Even if you want to, you won't get any visa or green card for any body in the solar system.
Eric L
You literally live in the clouds. Your ignorance of astronomy screams and echoes through the skies of Mars.
The countries that will be strong in the future are the countries where space tourism will be developed.
Before the extraterrestrial settlement, the land must be cleared. And you have to learn how to utilize the resources of that planet.
For now, the one who succeeds in this is mainly the USA.
The East, with their mentality and culture, is still far from that.
In my opinion, in the 22nd century China will be the most powerful country. There will be a settlement on Mars. (The military industry will become a space industry). The economy will be structured so that settlement on Mars will bring growth. As long as Israel knows how to maintain reasonable equality between rich and poor, Israel will become one of the richest and most powerful countries on earth. Something like Switzerland, only stronger.
The most central problem is that even if Mars has an atmosphere like Earth's, with water like Earth's, because of the low gravity it is unlikely that humans will be able to exist without significant creational problems, humans can be changed to adapt to such conditions, but whatever is created will not be exactly human.
I don't understand the obsession with Mars, when airship colonies in the skies of Nega make much more sense.
In Naga there is protection from radiation, and at an altitude of 50 km the temperature ranges from 0-50 degrees Celsius, and an atmospheric pressure of 1 bar (ie a pressure of one atmosphere). At such an altitude, an astronaut who would have to go on a mission outside, would have to wear a fire suit that geologists who study volcanoes use (ie, oxygen supply and protection from sulfuric acid). In addition, in the dense atmosphere of Venus, normal air is an excellent buoyant gas (60% of the helium buoyancy tank here on Earth).
The atmosphere of Venus is full of nitrogen, and since it is mostly composed of carbon dioxide, it is possible to extract oxygen from it, thus creating air on the spot instead of bringing it from Earth.
A special bonus, since Venus is much closer to the Sun, there is no shortage of solar energy in larger quantities than on Earth (unlike Mars where energy in large quantities would probably have to come from a nuclear reactor).
Regarding water - the atmosphere of Venus does indeed contain very negligible amounts of water, in contrast to Mars which apparently contains frozen water underground, but it contains sulfuric acid, from which water can be extracted.
True, we are not talking about colonies on the ground itself, but you can consider Venus as a planet that is completely covered in an ocean, and the only way to live on it is to float 50 km in the atmosphere. Indeed, on the surface of the ground, the atmospheric pressure is so great that it is the same as the pressure a kilometer under the ocean here on Earth.
In the future, it may be possible to think of special robots that will withstand not only pressure (already today there are devices that know how to move and work under such pressures), but also at very high temperature, and extract metals and extract them, and then with the help of a balloon raise them back to a height of 50 km , where the materials produced will be collected by the colonies. The robots themselves will control remotely from the colonies.
Also regarding the long day in Naga (over 200 days), a simple solution is given - the entire atmosphere in the high places in question here revolves around the star at a speed of 350 km/h, so that the upper layer of the atmosphere surrounds Naga every 4 days. An airship floating in these heights will not feel at all this speed, because the entire atmosphere is moving at this speed (just as we do not feel that the earth is rotating because we are rotating with it).
The gravitational force on Venus is also about 90% of the Earth's (even at an altitude of 50 km), so the problem of the lack of gravity that damages the astronauts' bones and immune system will be solved.
So what do we have here?
Mars - deadly cold, with an atmosphere that is almost a vacuum, dangerous radiation, and very little solar energy. Any break or tear in the structure on Mars will lead to decompression and explosion, the facilities themselves must be thick enough to protect from deadly cosmic radiation, and the energy will have to be produced from a nuclear reactor which could create many problems. Every exit outside the colony will be accompanied by the long and arduous process of putting on a space suit. And in addition, the gravity on Mars is only about 38% of that of the Earth, so it is very possible that the problem of the lack of gravity will be relevant there as well (in space they propose the solution of centrifuges to simulate gravity, but creating such a structure on a planet with a A certain pull is a complicated thing that will probably need a lot of energy and a lot of failures are expected).
Compared to Venus, which at an altitude of 50 km probably contains the environment most similar to Earth in the solar system (besides Earth).
I also don't understand the bias in NASA - full focus on the study of Mars or Europa, because of the possibility that there was or still is life there. But why do you prefer to study Titan, which is no less hostile to manga, and how much more distant, than to focus on the planet closest to us (yes, more than Mars)? If you consider the cost and simplicity logically, the option of floating colonies in Nega is probably much more realistic than the colonies on Mars.
I remember such artist drawings of astronauts on Mars more than 25 years ago.
The truth is that even thinking about sending people to Mars is not serious on any scientific scale. Apart from the thrill and the feeling of occupation (which respects the place and especially the occupation), there is no benefit.
It would be better if they completely abandoned the illusion of manned voyages and concentrated on advanced propulsion methods. Robotic missions to Jupiter and perhaps even test the feasibility of self-crushing distant ice and asteroids on Mars to become life-supporting.
But all this probably won't happen because political correctness, dime popularity and banality have taken over every good plot
To Yossi, the Russians have original technology. And I think in the future they will steal technologies from China as well. Today we do cooperation between states. Whoever remains outside the circle, steals technologies.
I believe that a manned journey to Mars would take place in 2060. This journey/flight was with international cooperation, similar to the International Space Station project.
It's nice that in these days of terror, there are still those who think about a trip to Mars that will save humanity from its tendency to destroy. This is not said sarcastically. We all understand that fighting Daesh is just a symptom of a much larger culture war. There is no attempt to provoke here. I don't want to deal with it. Back to the journey to Mars.
The main difficulty in my opinion is the insistence on taking the gas station and the oxygen tank together with the vehicle for the trip. For this purpose, programs such as a trip to the moon and the launch of a projectile towards Mars are being implemented. In my opinion, it is necessary to think about durable energy sources with a high volume/weight to energy ratio. I've already said before that driving with a nuclear engine seems right to me, at least for the stage of the journey itself. What is strange to me is that we don't hear about attempts at all in this direction. In the world of science fiction, physicists talk about gravitational propulsion, wormhole propulsion and more. But in a practical world, they insist on rocket propulsion and nuclear fuel. Nuclear engines power aircraft carriers and submarines for 13 years. Regarding the other challenges such as oxygen production and food compression in the weight/energy ratio - I believe that humanity has a solution. As they knew how to build the LHC in Tsern, there is no technological reason why such a multinational project will not be defined in the next twenty years. And if there is fear from China and Russia of information theft, or technological superiority, there is still Europe. In the end, the information flows to the East, in my opinion, because because they are less creative, they are creative in stealing information.