Mars...and Beyond

© NASA/JPL

Copyright © 2019

by Ralph F. Couey

"We want to know;

We want to know who we are 

and what we are capable of.

I want to know."

--Jeno Marz

Fifty years ago this week, an ugly, spindly craft landed on the moon, after just a bit of a detour.  Although practiced literally hundreds of times into an area memorized from images, it was discovered that no plan survives contact with reality.  Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin cooly and calmly glided the fragile craft past a boulder field to a much more inviting place.  With 22 seconds of descent fuel remaining, the craft settled onto an alien surface for the first time in human history.  A short time later, Armstrong descended the ladder, and after a short pause on the foot pad, made humanity's first footprint on the moon.  

Six more missions would be launched towards earth's satellite, five actually making the landing.  At the time, it seemed logical that we would take the next step and head for Mars.  But we knew so little about space and we naively assumed that going to the red planet was little different than the moon, just a longer trip.  Decades later, we know differently.  

Once outside the protective canopy of Earth's magnetic field, the craft and its occupants would be at the mercy of the radiation from our nearby sun, and those a lot further away.  Those rays if not blocked somehow would kill the crew, especially if the sun began erupting flares.  Also, they would be at the mercy of debris in space, ranging from continent-sized rocks down to things the size of a grain of sand which despite the size, could punch a crew-killing hole in the side of the craft.  Just getting there would be a dangerous challenge.  

Once the ship arrived in Mars orbit, now they have to descend to the surface, a completely different problem, Landing on a moon with a small amount of gravity and no atmosphere by comparison is much easier.  It's different from landing on earth because using parachutes in a thick atmosphere and falling into the ocean assumes that you don't want to lift off again. 

Once on the surface, the explorers need to be prepared to stay awhile.  After all, it took more than six months to get there, so you want to spend more than a long weekend.  That means a habitat of some kind stocked with food, water emergency and medical supplies along with the tools of exploration.  Mars does not have a magnetic field, so the explorers will somehow have to be shielded from the rain of solar and cosmic radiation.  

Once the program of exploration and experimentation is complete, one has to hope that the ascent craft will work and not have been damaged through exposure to the elements or got broken because that's what technology sometimes does.  If there is a successful liftoff, then the ascent craft must rendezvous with the larger ship in orbit and after transferring people and Mars rocks, one hopes the main engine will fire on time and within specs after spending a long time in orbit.

Then, it's 200-plus days of transit, again facing the same hazards present in the outbound leg.  And finally, the craft re-enters Earth orbit, and another descent craft heads downward.  Now comes the searing heat of re-entry.  Those parachutes, having been cold-soaked in space for over a year, better work.  And once the ship lands in the water, hope there isn't another Liberty Bell 7 door problem that almost cost Gus Grissom his life.

A mission to Mars will require engineering on a scale never before attempted.  It will require massive amounts of money.  And it will require strong and consistent public support.  Continuing attention on the war in Vietnam and the associated public response cost us the manned space program.  We can't allow ourselves to be distracted this time around.

So, it might be asked, with all these challenges why do it at all?  Why travel to another planet?

Humans, the current version anyway, have been around for some 200,000 years.  While that seems like a pretty good stretch, remember that the last dominant species, collectively called dinosaurs, lasted about 90 million years, and probably would still be here if not for the unfortunate arrival of a 50-mile-wide space rock.  But hard-wired into our DNA is a persistent, driving curiosity about the world, and the universe, around us.  We have always wanted to know the unknown, and have always had the courage (or craziness) to go places in person.  It not only manifests itself in how we explore space, but also how we create tools to solve problems; how we look for ways to cure diseases instead of just living with them. Yes, we argue and fight with each other far too much, but because when we feel we are right, we stand our ground, rather than surrender, even if the facts prove us wrong.

As long as that curiosity, and stubbornness, exists within us, we must answer that call.  Even our fictional literature is filled with journeys into the unknown. 

I can see these proposals of habitats on the moon and Mars as steps to establishing other outposts throughout the solar system.  These would be places from which additional explorations could be launched.  For example, there is evidence of water ice on the moon.  Some think there may be pockets of water beneath Mars' sandy surface.  Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, appears to have a vast subterranean ocean.  Water is the essential element for human survival, and if there is sufficient quantities available in a given place, then that is somewhere humans could live.

We may never go to the stars, Einstein's famous equation demonstrating remarkable strength.  But there are enough unanswered questions here in our own solar system to keep us enthralled for a thousand years.  And don't forget, the Sun's family includes not just the planets, but the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, stretching out over three light years.  (Side note:  Aboard the fastest craft ever flown by humans, it would take about 17,000 years to travel just one light year.)

There is plenty to see, and plenty to learn.  But such missions would have to be a global undertaking.  Many nations would have to take part.  And I think the more humans who see our fragile home from space, the less likely we are to fight over every rock and tree.

To grow, we must reach.  If humanity is to survive space rocks, climate change, and each other, than we need to be reaching out beyond our planet.

Perhaps for no other reason than to discover that the universe is way bigger than any one of us.