The next frontier for human spaceflight is
obvious.
We have to go to Mars.
You might’ve heard a lot of people talking
about this recently — from tech innovators
to NASA scientists, even President Obama has
made the case that we should go to Mars.
So we talked to Chris McKay, a senior scientist
at NASA's Ames research center.
He's involved in the planning of future Mars
missions, and he walked us through some of
the hazards.
I'm Brian Resnick, I'm a science reporter
at Vox.
I will never go to Mars, and here the top
seven reasons why.
Here's number one.
Your rocket could blow up before leaving Earth.
This is pretty obvious.
NASA has a pretty good track record with sending
astronauts to space, but we also know that
there have been tragedies.
For some context, the NASA space shuttle program
carried 833 people to orbit between 1981
and 2011, of which fourteen people died in
two big explosions.
SpaceX has a checkered history of trying to
launch rockets and land them.
Number two: So if you successfully leave Earth
and it's all safe, and it's all good, there are
still some dangers in that journey to Mars.
The biggest danger here is radiation exposure.
The vacuum of space is not really empty.
There's radiation emanating from the sun,
and it goes out in all directions.
There are gamma rays, and X rays, and ultraviolet
light, and all these things that can damage
our cells.
Here on Earth, we have a dense atmosphere
and a magnetic field that helps keep this
radiation out of our daily lives.
According to measurements from NASA’s Curiosity
rover, there’s more radiation on the surface
of Mars than there would be on Earth.
Perhaps the more worrisome risk of radiation
in space is from solar flares.
Occasionally and randomly and in a way that's
hard to predict, the sun emits very large
batches of radiation in great flares.
Number three: you can crash on Mars' surface
trying to land.
One thing about landing on Mars that the atmosphere
is a lot thinner.
That means there's a lot less of a cushion
— another way to think about it is there's
a lot less friction in the atmosphere that
will naturally slow your spacecraft down.
You would need a system of rockets to help
you land smoothly on Mars.
We saw with the Curiosity rover, that was
an incredibly intricate and choreographed
maneuver to get just that one-ton rover down
onto the planet. Could you imagine getting
6, 7, 10, a hundred humans down onto that
planet?
You would need a very complicated, very sophisticated,
and very well-tested system to help people
descend down to the Martian surface.
Number four: Mars’ low gravity might wreak
havoc on your bones and muscles.
Many astronauts who spend six months or more on the Space Station
have vision loss that doesn't get corrected
when they come back down to the Earth.
There was one astronaut that went from perfect
20/20 vision to 20/100 vision just in six months.
Other things that happen in the microgravity
of space is that your muscles start to deteriorate,
your bones start to deteriorate, and this
can be staved off by some regular exercise,
but NASA really hasn't found a complete solution
to this problem.
Think about a six-month voyage to Mars.
You know once you get there, the Martian gravity
isn't as strong as Earth's.
It's not as light as you would be on the moon,
it’s not as heavy as you would be on Earth.
So will muscles and bones and eyesight continue
to deteriorate on Mars
is not yet known.
Number five: your space suit or habitat could
leak, and you just can't breathe Martian air.
The pressure of Mars’ atmosphere is just
a fraction of the pressure of the earth's
atmosphere.
Your house on Mars would be like the cabin
of an airplane:
Any crack in your house any slit in your space
suit will lead it to depressurize … and that's
an obvious problem.
Mars is filled with dust and dirt
that just gets everywhere — it could
quickly clog all of your intake vents, it
could quickly destroy some of your electronics,
and people could die if you inhale it.
So the dream is that one day we could potentially
breathe Martian air.
This is an idea that has long obsessed science
fiction authors: it's called terraforming.
And the idea is that maybe we can change the
Martian atmosphere to be more like Earth.
We could start some global warming on Mars,
and raise the temperature of the planet, and
entrap more greenhouse gases in. We
can raise the level of CO2 so we can start
growing plants there, those plants could then
start to produce oxygen.
This is probably the most far-fetched idea
out there — not to say it's impossible, but just,
it is well, well into the future.
Number six: the planet Mars could literally kill you.
The soil of Mars is toxic.
You might have seen the movie The Martian,
where astronaut Mark Watney grows potatoes
on Mars in the Martian soil.
We probably shouldn't do that.
It contains a very high concentrations of
chemicals called perchlorates.
These are salts that can do serious damage
to the human body, especially the thyroid.
You wouldn’t want to grow your potatoes
in it.
It's okay to get Martian dirt on your hands
but you really wouldn't want to get into your
drinking water or food or get into your habitat.
Number seven: your fellow travelers could
drive you crazy.
This is been a surprising challenge for NASA to learn and to get over: how do you
craft a crew for a spaceship that will be
alone with each other for months on end, and
also be the only human beings on an entire
planet
for perhaps months or years, and spending
only their time with one another?
If there's going to be a mutiny, or if there's going to be interpersonal strife on Mars, that is
an element that could be the riskiest of all.
There was this project called Biosphere 2
in 1994.
"Living in it was supposed to be like living
in a space colony."
It was a seven-person crew, and they
split up into warring factions and the mission
had to end prematurely.
So it will take some calibration to find
who are the right people for this type of mission.
The first people who go to Mars should go
with the expectation that they might never
come back.
But that hasn't stopped explorers for centuries:
There's always gonna be a drive in humans
to go places we've never been before.
And for the most part, that drive is something
that has aided our survival at times.
So will the risks on a trip to Mars be great?
Absolutely.
Should we go?
Absolutely.
