Life on mars
Astronomers think of walking on Mars. Big problem is : how to go to mars ? How long time is the journey ? How long on martian ground? How expensive ? Will passengers suffer from travel, time, local conditions … ? Many questions.
We try to answer.
Propulsion
Fi rst, the best machine to go there ( Franklin Frank Diaz imagined it) would be a space vehicle, called VASIMIR, driven by an electric engine, powered through a small nuclear reactor. Hydrogen is first overheated to plasma, then to millions of degrees (by micro waves radiations).
Travel is 90 millions kilometers long, could last only three months. A more ordinary engine would require 6 to 9 months time.
So long this "éternal" voyage, that astronauts will have to keep their stress low, and fitness high : do sports, running fit-machines to prevent muscles and bone atrophy, unable to bear flight decelerations and planet gravity
On the red ground, they will live in an home they have brought for this mission, their only living for two long years. They will have no intimity, and to support each other. Six persons team: four men, two women. Women will be more mother than wives!
Outside martian home, astronauts will stay in scaphanders. They alsso protect from cosmic rays, sun eruptions… Main difficulty will be psycholocal, and may lead to depression or suicid.
If a big trouble happens, no rescue can come, given the distance between our two planets. Communications will have five minutes delay, that will slow communications.
Distance and problems, and cost, need discussion and think about all that.
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