lead to Mars is a long - sought dreaming of humans , often exact to be just two 10 away . aspiration , unfortunately , will not get us there so we have to confront up to an often harsh reality . In this eccentric , the dose of realism was delivered by none other than former NASA cosmonaut Chris Hadfield .
Hadfield was interview byBusiness Insiderabout the unexampled space race and the ultimate end of bothspace agencies and secret companiesto go to – and maybe even dress a permanent base on – the Red Planet . Elon Musk ’s Space X claims that wewill be on Marswithin a decade , Mars One and NASA by the other 2030s . Hadfield does n’t argue about the tech , though , there ’s another monetary value often disregard in these ambitious architectural plan : human liveliness .
" We could direct people to Mars decennary ago . The technology that took us to the moon and back when I was just a tyke — that technology can take us to Mars , " Hadfield told Business Insider . But , he pointed out , " The bulk of the cosmonaut that we ship on those missions would n’t make it . They ’d die . "
The risks are many . There are long - term risks associated with being uncover to cosmic radiation sickness outside the Earth ’s protective magnetic field . But there are also risk of infection associated with just project a mission that would take a handful of citizenry on a journeying jillion of kilometre from Earth . Others , like Professor Brian Cox in arecent consultation with IFLScience , have verbalize similar reservations about the physical and genial price of undertaking such a journey .
" It ’s very different from going to the Moon or sitting on the International Space Station , where you ’re always a few hours away from Earth , " Cox said . " Psychologically , no one has been that far from Earth . And we ’re talking about months , perhaps a class from Earth . I think that ’s a challenge that we do n’t in full understand . "
The risk of infection of something function ill-timed gets high the longer you are in space , and stimulate to Mars and back could take up to three age . Even if many known risks can be minimized ( and it ’s not clear at the moment that they can ) , there are for certain complication simply by being in space . Medical treatment , evensimple surgical procedures , would be extremely unmanageable . That ’s why Hadfield is unconvinced by NASA ’s Space Launch System , SpaceX ’ Big Falcon Rocket , and Blue Origin ’s New Glenn rocket .
" My guess is we will never go to Mars with the locomotive that exist on any of those three rockets unless we truly have to , " he tell . " I do n’t think those are a pragmatic means to send people to Mars because they ’re grievous and it takes too long , and it , therefore , exposes us to a risk for a tenacious time . "
Hadfield think that the samara to safety is in unexampled engineering . Some already exist , like ion actuation ornuclear reactors , others are still beyond our limit .
" Someone has to invent something we have n’t think of yet , " Hadfield said . " mayhap the work that ’s going on with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the space place and in the atom throttle in CERN and other lieu … is go to show us how we can rein in gravity .
" It sounds outlandish , but we figured out how to harness electrical energy and what electrons do , and that seemed crazy , and it ’s revolutionise life and travel . So who know ? "
[ H / T : Business Insider ]
