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A Mission To Mars - Part Two
RIA Novosti Political Commentator Moscow (RIA Novosti) Nov 02, 2006 The 438-day flight aboard the Mir orbiter by physician Valery Polyakov at the end of the last century showed there are no fundamental medical or biological restrictions to extended space missions. Radiation, however, is another matter. Its effects intensify multifold when the vehicle leaves the protection of the Earth's magnetosphere. This demands a special anti-radiation facility. It might be a radiation shelter that could absorb charged particles or an artificial electromagnetic field built up around the craft. Presently, developers are inclined to opt for structural protection by placing tanks with fuel, water and other supplies around the living quarters. This affords a rate of protection of about 80-100 g/sq cm. Another problem is food. It would appear that years of practice have taken care of it, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. The crew of a space ship will use freeze-dried products which need a little water and heating before being put on the table. But fine and delightful as such dishes may be, they should be mixed with some normal food. The idea of keeping caged fowl onboard the vehicle for cosmonauts to eat their eggs, quail eggs preferably, had to be abandoned. Experiments showed that newly hatched chicks never adapted to zero gravity. Fish and shellfish fared better, but they grow too slowly, and so cosmonauts are unlikely to eat fresh fish on their way to Mars. What is certain is that the interplanetary ship will have a greenhouse, though a small one. The optimum choice of crops will be crucial. It has been calculated that a cosmonaut needs 2.5 liters of water daily, which means the vehicle will have to have a supply of several tons. Some of the water will be recirculated. An ideal arrangement would be a closed-circuit physical and chemical system to ensure cycles of substances. But this appears to belong to a distant future. Other problems are psychological. With great distances involved, a radio signal will take 20 to 30 minutes to travel each way. Mission Control will simply have no time to intervene in an emergency. Earth will at best provide advice, but all decision-making will be the responsibility of the spacecraft. But before a crewed Martian expedition lifts off, scientists will try to solve many of these problems during the Mars-500 mission. It will be an imitation, not a real flight: a crew of six will spend 520 days in a ground facility consisting of five hermetically sealed communicating modules. One will imitate the Martian surface. The modules are loaded with devices to register various parameters inside and to monitor the health of the test subjects. Scientists need to know how human beings act in teams and handle non-standard situations. All results -- starting with the behavior pattern of the crew and ending with their diet -- will be examined by specialists. This will take care of most likely situations and ways of dealing with them during the flight. A crew is currently being recruited for the "ground interplanetary mission." Ninety volunteers from 19 countries have already stepped forward. They are mainly men, with only eight women and one married couple. The explanation appears simple: physiologically and psychologically women have fewer chances than men to be among the first to step on Mars. The experiment will involve six people, although the real mission to the planet will have a crew of four. Remarkably, soon after Russia announced the Mars-500 experiment, the United States began inviting volunteers for an imitation flight. The American experiment is scheduled to begin on May 1, 2007. Test subjects will spend four months on it. The European Space Agency is developing its own concept of an expedition to Mars, so far uncrewed. China has plans to explore and utilize Mars. In short, a space race is getting off the start line again. The only question is, why should we fly to Mars at all? "Most scientific achievements in space are credited to automatic devices, not manned missions," says Lev Zeleny, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Space Research Institute. He believes, however, a human being is bound to land on Mars, even if the event makes no rational sense. The sensations of a person stepping down on the surface of another planet are so precious as to have no value scale to appreciate them. Second of two parts (Andrei Kislyakov is a political commentator for the RIA Novosti news agency. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti.)
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Minerals And Mountains On Mars
Kingston, Canada (SPX) Nov 01, 2006A Queen's University researcher has discovered a mineral that could explain the mountainous landscape of Mars, and have implications for NASA's next mission to the planet. "Satellites orbiting Mars show us images of canyons and gullies that appear to have been created by a flood or rapid out-washing," says Ron Peterson, Queen's geologist. |
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