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Is human space travel to the planet Mars too dangerous?

Results so far:

No
63% 634 votes Total: 1006 votes
Yes
37% 372 votes

After the "visit" to the Moon by the first humans of the Apollo spaceship in 1969, the following target for humans seems to be mars, but the first walk of a man on its red surface is programmed, with many uncertainty, for 2025-30 by NASA.

With the technologies available so far, many and enormous are the technical and organization problems still to resolve and these imply also many fatal risks for human crews, firstly, for the very long times required for the journey to Mars, about 2-3 months, minimum and the same to come back.

These long travels are showed to be harmful for astronauts because, living in the space for long periods, their bones and muscles tend to reduce until the atrophy, due to the absence of gravity that justifies their strength and resistance. Also body circulation changes, with a higher blood flux to head and brain, among the various problems. This, despite all the gymnastic that astronauts try to make in the space, as much as possible, to avoid these effects.
Only on Mars itself this absence of gravity would be partially compensated, given that gravity on this planet is 38% of that on the Earth, but a recovery of the lost bone tissue during the long travel could be very slow and not complete.

Another serious problem is the absence of protections from cosmic radiations (that can cause cancer) on Mars surface, due to its much less dense atmosphere (the atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 1/100 of that on the Earth) and to the absence of a strong magnetic field able to block and divert the charged particles of cosmic rays and solar wind. So, human body would need particularly strong and resistant protections against such penetrating radiations and our permanence on Mars would be a rather claustrophobic life in bunkers underground, surely, not very attractive for most people.

Also the beginning of the return phase would be particularly delicate and full of risks for the need of enough energy to start from Mars surface and reach the Earth; every technical problem could be impossible to resolve on Mars, especially during the first exploring missions, without a stable and really autonomous human base and, in most cases, it would be fatal.

Now, the additional resources for the return journey could be provided by an automatic spaceship sent on Mars just before the mission with a human crew, loaded with fuel and supplies, but the spaceship with the crew should land on Mars just in the zone where the supplies will have been sent.

The Sun could provide


Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:

Is human space travel to the planet Mars too dangerous?

Yes
  • 1 of 24

    by Gunter Chang

    Of course travel to Mars, 150 million miles of hard vacuum and cosmic radiation away, is too dangerous and it will probably

    read more

  • 2 of 24

    by Aldo Bonincontro

    After the "visit" to the Moon by the first humans of the Apollo spaceship in 1969, the following target for humans seems

    read more

No
  • 1 of 37

    by Gary C. Gibson

    N.A.S.A.'s record for safe space travel is not excellent. Their standard of blowing things up on the way to Mars probably

    read more

  • 2 of 37

    by T. Scott Randolph

    Is it dangerous to attempt a manned mission to Mars? Of course it is. All exploration is dangerous. Anytime mankind has pushed

    read more

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