Humanity has
been fascinated by Mars since long before we stepped foot on the Moon. Our
planetary neighbor has been the subject of innumerable works of sci-fi and
inspired countless dreams of adventure and exploration. Now, after decades of
determination, research, and scientific breakthroughs, we’re finally ready to
do it: humans are going to Mars. Really.
Last year
President Trump issued a mandate for NASA: get people to Mars by 2033. One week
later, NASA responded with its most detailed plan to date for reaching the Red
Planet, and it details five phases along the road to Mars.
We’re in
Phase 0 now, conducting tests at the International Space Station (ISS) and
developing partnerships with private space companies. Phase I will span 2018 to
2025 and will include the launch and testing of six SLS rockets. Those rockets
will deliver components of the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), a new space station to
be built near the Moon to serve astronauts en route to Mars.
After that,
Phase II will launch the Deep Space Transport (DST) tube toward the lunar
station in 2027, and in 2028 or 2029, astronauts will inhabit the tube for more
than 400 days.
In 2030,
Phase III will see the DST restocked with supplies and the Mars crew via SLS
rocket. Phase IV, of course, will be the trip itself in 2033. That means we’re
just a scant 16 years away from reaching a goal that has eluded every
generation that came before us.
Completing
the mission within their budget will be a challenge for NASA. That budget is
currently about .5 percent of the total U.S. budget. For comparison, it was
more than four percent during the Apollo Moon missions.
The mission
to Mars includes obstacles beyond budget — keeping astronauts healthy and
reasonably happy on the journey is chief among them. Without stopovers between
Earth and Mars, astronauts will need to port everything they need with them,
including air, food, and water, for a round-trip duration of two or three
years.
Mental
health is likely to be a concern for Mars astronauts, too, as they will
essentially be sealed into the space tube for years at a time, with no ability
for an emergency return once they leave Cislunar space. NASA’s HI-SEAS
isolation experiment has shown promising results, but it is likely that the
journey won’t be possible for everyone.
NASA also
has competition in the race to get to Mars. Both Boeing and SpaceX hope to get
there first, with SpaceX setting the lofty goal of arriving in 2022.
Ultimately,
though, we all benefit from the friendly competition in the race toward Mars
and the creative solutions it will almost certainly generate. If private
companies work out some of these human challenges before NASA can, the agency
can build on their experiences and spend its budget and efforts on other
problems. In the end, the goal of putting humans on Mars will have been
reached, irrespective of which organization crosses the finish line first.
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