NASA Strives for Long-term Mars Presence
Mankind has always had a desire to travel into space to go to the 4th planet from the son, Mars, and now NASA (www.nasa.gov) is determined to find a way to get a long-term Mars presence in the future. In order to accomplish a long-term Mars presence, man would have to be able to do much more than just travel to the Red Planet. So, NASA is soliciting ideas on what things would be needed to sustain humans in a long-term Mars presence.
NASA foresees the possible landing of a manned Mars mission by the 2030s and wants to be prepared to stay there for a long-term Mars presence. In order to get some innovative ideas on the topic, they have also instituted a challenge to space enthusiasts on a crowdsourcing platform called InnoCentive (www.innocentive.com) to get
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NASA is going to reward three winners of the challenge with $5,000 prizes, so there is a lot at stake for those who like thinking about a Mars travel in the future and who want to share in the adventure of getting humans there and back.
Anyone taking NASA up on this challenge of a long-term Mars presence solution will be dubbed a “solver.” They are to describe something that a Mars mission and sustained presence on Mars would need in order to achieve the goal of becoming economically sustainable and being able to somehow eliminate their requirements for support from Earth.
Solvers Need to Think Creatively about Solutions
Since help from Earth would be several hundred days away, the group of Mars explorers who would travel to the Red Planet would need to be able to operate essentially on their own for a long period of time. This means that the “solvers” will have to think about topics like food, oxygen, water, shelter, medical, communications and similar
I’ll use the LexisNexis and EBSCOhost databases, available through the Ivy Tech library. I will also use the reference librarians at the Tippecanoe Public, as they are an invaluable research tool. I will use reports from NASA, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and other governmental resources. I will send questions to aerospace firms and elected officials, asking about their thoughts and what their goals are. I will read books, articles, and proposals written by experts on the topic. One such book is Mission to Mars by Buzz Aldrin, an Apollo astronaut. Through this research I will find the facts, and then I will make arguments based on those
In my Genius Hour Project, I researched long-term colonization of Mars. I chose this topic because I have always been fascinated by other planets and space. What we cannot see has always made me wonder. I pursued my interests in this project. I set a goal to learn about Mars. This experience has made me much more knowledgeable and curious about other planets.
In going along with this plan, there will be more demand for scientists and engineers alike. Engineers will build the manned bases and vessels, while scientists occupy them and gather data to benefit the world. In this way, NASA will be able to see if it is possible to make Mars the next “Earth”, making plans to help make that a reality if this does happen. “Through space exploration and innovative thinking, NASA has injected science and inspiration into our culture and projected us into the future” (Haberle).
“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime” was said by Buzz Aldrin, a NASA astronaut. The former American aeronaut from Montclair, New Jersey believes that since Mars does exist, it is waiting to be reached by humans. When this would happen, he says that the human race would “evolve into a two-planet species.” Present day Mars has a lot of canyons, mountains and volcanoes. Even though the surface is Mars is very old, scientists learned about different younger rift valleys, plains, hills and ridges. According to recent reports, there were lakes and rivers, along with an ocean billions of years ago. The low temperatures on the planet cause there to be polar ice caps and frozen water present. Scientists continue to notice several discoveries on the planet that lead them to think there was once life on the planet. Different clues have scientists wanting to find out about even more. Many scientists in the past few centuries have been curious if life on Mars is possible or if it has ever been before.
“The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many” -Captain Kirk, Star Trek. In this weeks reading of The Martian, this idea is communicated in the story that saving one person is more important than saving many people.
Problems included the effects of zero gravity, how to make a sustainable food source in space with a limited supply of water, how to stay fit, & how to keep food from spoiling in space for the long-term trip from Earth to Mars and back.
Going to a Mars is an idea that is heavily debated in society and whether it is worth all of the government dollars to pursue a mission like this. The concept that will be explained is the idea of colonizing mars, as well as the various effects that it would bring upon humanity. This will includes issues such as Mars’ weather, how we plan on getting there, and what the cost to travel there will be. Past endeavors when it comes to space travel will also be discussed The benefits to humanity will also be discussed, and how having people on Mars may protect the human race if a global catastrophe were to occur.
NAME- Vedika Sakhardande COUNTRY- France COMMITTEE- Futuristic Mars Committee Humans are known for adapting, that is the reason they been able to survive through all the changes earth has faced in the past millennia. But now the human race is on the brink of extinction as the world now is nothing more than a toxic wasteland. Several factors such as pollution, deforestation, ozone depletion, green house effect etc, have piece by piece torn apart mother earth. The atmosphere is ruined, the air fatal to breathe, climate changes have occurred which have changed the fate of mankind, floods have occurred due to melting of polar ice caps, crops have failed and resources have been depleted.
Thesis: There are many problems that we, as humans, need to solve before journeying to Mars.
In 2012, the Mars One program was announced, which aims to build the first human settlement on the surface of Mars. The first mission would depart Earth in 2026, sending four people on a one-way journey to the surface of Mars. Additional four-person crews would be sent to Mars at every succeeding launch opportunity to further support and expand the Martian colony. The crew is selected from a pool of applicants who were enthusiastic enough to go on a trip to Mars without coming back. These applicants may look at the program as a dream come true, but others could perceive it as a nightmare.
Since the world is slowly dying and the whole of the scientific community is looking for a plan to save humanity, I am here to give you some good news. I and my crew at JTekCo, have devised a plan to save the human race, we are going to colonize mars. Over the past year we have created the tools, equipment, and plans to efficiently colonize Mars, know I know some of you are thinking why move, why not try to fix earth. Well, there are great pull factors to Mars, such as it is a clean slate, we have designed the whole planet to work efficiently and it will be designed right the first time. Another pull factor is, that there are no people on Mars, which means we can build without people getting in the way, as happens here.
Space exploration activist are interested to find ways to colonize Mars believing it will lead to major scientific breakthroughs. However from another perspective, the cost of space exploration since 1958 is over $900 billion (Wallace).The main argument against working
Humans can expect to face some major challenges on an expedition to Mars. It has been proven that humanity can travel in space for over two years. Cumulatively, Sergei Constantinovich Krikalev, a Russian cosmonaut, has spent over eight-hundred and three days in Earth orbit (Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2005). The expedition to Mars would require the crew to endure a six month journey to the planet, a year of living on the planet, and a six months journey back to Earth. Russian cosmonaut, Valery V. Polyakoz, clocking in at four-hundred and thirty-eight days for just one stay in Earth orbit, shows humanity is capable of a twelve month round trip to Mars (Schwirtz, 2009).
Robert Zubrin, an engineer that is working for Lockheed Martin, suggests that NASA should send humans to Mars, instead of machines. Machines are too limited in what they can accomplish, and humans need to be there to make up for what machines are incapable of doing (Easton 170). He brings up the point that Lewis and Clark did not spend the time or the resources to even try to take enough food and supplies to last them the entire time that they were exploring new lands.
NASA’s planned missions to Mars, should it come to fruition, will be the furthest distance any human being has ever traversed. While this is an impressive feat in and of itself, it becomes even more so when one takes into acco...