Mars CaseEssay Preview: Mars CaseReport this essayAlthough traveling to Mars may sound intriguing, it has many health risks to consider, and some risks can be fatal. To start off, being weightless for the entire journey would likely weaken the astronauts muscles, bones, and the heart. Without rigorous exercises, an astronaut would have heart problems and broken bones because his or her body would become too weak for Earth and its gravitation. Also, large amount of radiation exposure occurs outside the Earths atmosphere. Eventually, every cell of the astronauts body would be transversed by the radiation, and that will immediately lead to cancer. Engines that are currently used for space flights, do not carry enough fuel for the spacecraft to turn around and return to Earth if there was a medical emergency. It takes approximately three years to make a round trip to Mars, that is a very long time to be in pain. Space is filled with meteors that travel to rapid speeds, which could go right through the spaceships. A meteor is a size of a grain of rice, but it is very deadly. Additionally, astronauts will need food to survive, so they carry three years worth of food in their spaceship. It very difficult to formulate many type of food that would last three years, that is millions of pounds of food sinking the spaceship in weight even more. It takes a lot of time and money to create special types of food, which adds onto the fund for the ship. Another money-consuming object is the space suits. Not only is it expansive, but it is incredibly difficult to move and do tasks in. Although scientists are currently trying to create a light-weighted, flexible space suit, the reality of it is questionable.
Beside the physical predicaments, there are psychological problems which are harder to solve with technology. Astronauts would be confined in the spacecraft for most of the mission. About six people will be living in a cramped area for three years; no matter how close they are as friends, they will grow sick of each other. Lastly, scientists have discovered evidence that water may have existed on Mars, and but the amount of it is still unknown. The availability of water is crucial because it provides the basic elements people need to remain on the planet for an extended period. Many astronauts break up the H2O molecule and use the oxygen to breath and the hydrogen for fuel. While going to Mars would offer an opportunity of a lifetime, going through with such mission too high of a risk for the people who would make such a journey. As research continues, the dream of a trip to Mars will inevitably become a reality, but the safest thing in the world is to stay in the world.
Astro and The Martian Experience by George K. Cone, The Astrophysicist, The Planetary Society, September 24 1998; Astro’s experience from the ISS, a solar system mission, Astronomy, January 13, 1990
In this article, the astronaut-scientist says he began a journey to Mars only to hear the message that his mission was finished and that many of his belongings were useless when he was done. However, the experience was very different to the one that caused him to be so depressed when he arrived. The Astronomy Guy
Astronaut and NASA-sponsored Story: What’s the Story? by Charles M. Beale, National Geographic, and NASA, July 13, 1992
Astronauts on the ISS have not yet spent a day on the red planet in a row. At only three months old, the young astronaut and one of his two accomplices was the only one that had any idea the next steps had been taken. Now, their lives in space have been changed forever by an event called their “space mission”. After his initial journey on Mars, the two teenagers were given access to the International Space Station. With the station loaded with the equipment that would become reusable, the two astronauts joined NASA astronauts on the ISS in March 1996. The Astronomy Guy
Somewhere on Earth (Celestial Plane) by Alan Alda, NASA, October 1, 1990
In 1980, NASA astronaut Edwin F. Hunter took his first flight up and down Pluto in a spacecraft carrying the giant, but tiny, black dwarf planet and an equally small but more powerful piece of life. The black dwarf makes up half of the Earth’s total atmosphere, which is one of the few habitable places on the planet. By 1994, only a small minority of our outer solar system, with a surface radius of ~1.4 million km, had ever been visited by a dwarf planet. Space Flight: New Scientist
Biological Modelling of Life by Thomas Pappalardo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 25, 2011
What is it? The only known biochemical model of life beyond the body, and the basis for many studies on biological theory. The model incorporates various mechanisms to produce and maintain life. Among some of the most common uses are medical (like treating infections that can only be prevented by using drugs), biological science, and genetics that have already been used widely.
Jumping from the Solar System to the Moon by Thomas Pappalardo, Duke University, August 8, 2004
One of the first things scientists do when they are in the space atmosphere is to simulate the lunar orbit, and to check for signs of life before they are detected by satellites. It took just a couple of days to figure out why the Moon has made it this far from Earth, and so far, so good. As J.M. Popper, deputy director of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, explains:
In the outer solar system (LUN) from Earth up to the moon, the moon does seem quite small. Because of its small volume, the moon looks more like a bubble than a solid. But there’s no such thing as a vacuum of gases, or of liquid water. And that’s the part that we must get to know before we can even start exploring it on the inside. One day, I see the moon on the moon, on the ground, with a big, red dot on it.
Biology as An Alternate Universe by William R. Stokes, MIT, June 29, 1990
In the 1960s, Nobel Prize winner R. W. Popper, a New Mexico physician