Are there astronauts on mars

Furthermore, the day is remarkably close to that of Earth. Drawing on an extensive history of launch vehicle and engine development programs, SpaceX has been rapidly iterating on the design of Starship with orbital-flight targeted for Once Starship has been fully refueled, it will begin its journey from Earth orbit, around the Sun and onward to Mars.

The nearest, most Earth-like world to our own, it shines with a reddish glow of reflected sunlight in the night sky, calling out to our curiosity and spirit of adventure. A day lasts about 24 hours, as on Earth Mars is a tenth of the mass of Earth, so gravity has only a third of the pull we experience. Space is big: while it took the Apollo astronauts only four days to reach the Moon, with present technology it would take about nine months to reach Mars.

By the time the planets align favourably for a return, a complete mission might last two or three years. Throughout that time, the astronauts would need food, water and oxygen, plus protection from radiation.

At this point, the success rate for robot missions does not inspire confidence. Russia has launched 21 Mars rockets to date, including five unmanned landers, but only two orbiters completed their missions. The US has been more successful, losing only five out of 23 missions. But there has yet to be a return mission. Clearly some more work is needed before we can contemplate sending humans to Mars. But, sooner or later, we will go. With the political will, it could be within 20 years.

And one thing that can be done in the meantime is test human psychological resilience for such a mission. Meanwhile, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter are mostly made up of toxic gases that would kill us even if they did have solid ground to walk on. Mars is really the only planet that sits within the habitable orbit around our sun. After more than a half century, humans have walked on the moon and delivered spacecraft that has flown to Pluto and even left the edges of our solar system.

According to NASA, there are a number of obstacles that we still need to overcome before sending a human mission to the planet, including technological innovation and a better understanding of the human body, mind and how we might adapt to life on another planet. The Red Planet is about 34 million miles 55 million kilometers away at its closest point. The Earth and Mars orbit the sun at different distances and speeds, meaning that there are certain more optimal periods to travel between the two, especially considering the idea is to not just to make it to Mars quickly, but to make it back.

That last train was perhaps the busiest period ever seen for interplanetary travel—three uncrewed Mars missions were launched last summer in the space of two weeks. All month windows are not the same, though. Sheehy notes that on top of this, there is a larger roughly year cycle when that window is even more favorable than others.

Technology of course plays a role in all of this. His organization is working on several different nuclear fission technologies, including a fission surface power system. They plan to demonstrate one on the moon. The various lunar missions have also revealed how the astronauts there dealt with the low-gravity situation there. Other ongoing research missions in Antarctica can also help inform us what to expect. These kinds of questions are important for determining how long it takes, and how many people are needed, to pull off basic tasks.

Another concern is how humans might be able to manage living in small confined spaces for a long time without much outside contact. But another tool to help us learn how to cope with unexpected challenges will be the Artemis mission , which is working to keep a sustainable population on the moon.

Many of the technologies for day to day living on the moon, as well as how living conditions might affect the people there, will help to inform a future Mars mission. The other challenge is landing on the Red Planet safely, though not necessarily in one piece. Instead of trying to return them, more crews would be sent every two years, establishing a permanent, ever-growing settlement on the Red Planet. Permanent settlement missions place even higher demands on the crew than a return mission.

A first permanent settlement crew would be on Mars for two years before the second crew joins them. They would be able to communicate with friends and family on Earth, but only with time delays.

Crew selection, training and testing on Earth would be necessary to make sure they can deal with this. Besides that, they would need to learn all the skills to survive on Mars without support from Earth, other than information. They would need to be able to fix every technical and medical problem, grow food and expand the settlement with hardware for upcoming crews. Crew selection is the biggest challenge of a permanent settlement mission to Mars.