Lapatilla
NASA has sent many spacecraft to distant worlds, but humans have yet to set foot on Mars, here’s why.
By: The Sun
Free translation from English by lapatilla.com
Space exploration has come a long way since Galileo first developed a telescope to observe the heavens in 1609.
We have sent a man to the moon through the Apollo 11 Project, developed satellites that orbit the Earth, placed rovers on Mars, and even documented supernova explosions.
Therefore, the question arises: why has man not yet set foot on Mars?
Clearly, scientists and engineers have developed the technology to do it: NASA probably could have accomplished this feat 30 years ago, according to a Business Insider report.
It appears that the delay can be attributed, in part, to politics, according to Zero Gravity Operations CEO Peter Diamandis.
Because NASA is a government funded agency, many of its initiatives are determined and outlined by the Executive Branch.
And since it was founded in 1958, the agency has worked with 12 presidential administrations, many of which clashed with each other when it came to space exploration goals.
“So what happened throughout all of space history after the Apollo program ended was start, stop, start, stop, cancel. The president comes in like Bush comes in to go to the Moon, back to Mars and the next president comes in and cancels that,” Diamandis told Business Insider.
“The agency cannot maintain constant funding to do anything,” he added.
For example, President Bush in 2004 announced NASA’s Constellation Program, which had two goals: to send a manned mission back to the moon in 2020 and to land humans on Mars in the 2030s.
However, when the Obama administration came around, the agency had to move away from the Constellation Program to focus instead on Obama’s “Journey to Mars” project, which aimed to send humans to the Red Planet in the early 2030s.
President Trump’s administrator shifted the agency’s focus yet again when he announced his goal to “return American astronauts to the moon and from there lay the groundwork for a mission to Mars,” according to Vice President Mike Pence.
All of these changes may have prevented the agency from focusing solely on a mission to Mars, which still requires addressing a number of concerns.
The first hurdle is just the distance between Mars and Earth, which is constantly changing as the two planets orbit the Sun at different rates, Michelle Rucker, lead of NASA’s Human Mars Architecture Team at the Space Center, told Astronomy. Johnson of NASA.
Therefore, an optimal period for traveling to and from the Red Planet does not occur as often as scientists would like: Right now, “trains to Mars,” so to speak, leave once every 26 months, according to Jeffrey Sheehy. , chief engineer of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Other important concerns include understanding how the human body and mind will be affected by factors such as spending a long period of time in a small, confined space, as well as exploring how it adapts to life on another planet.
Until NASA addresses these all-important concerns, Mars is likely on hold for cosmonauts.
“NASA scientists and engineers are amazing and have done extraordinary things. But they are risk averse. That doesn’t allow us to do new and novel things that are on the edge,” Diamandis said.
“Doing something big and bold in space is difficult and risky. So it is entrepreneurs who are risk takers these days, willing to risk it all,” he added.
Diamandis isn’t wrong: With private companies like SpaceX and Boeing funding their own missions to the Red Planet, it’s not unlikely that the first person to set foot on Mars will be a billionaire or a very lucky civilian.
In other news, the creators of a chilling new horror game say the title is so disturbing that they were forced to censor it on PlayStation.
Apple has announced updates to AirTags following claims that coin-sized tracking devices are being used to stalk people.
And TikTok has announced new rules, banning users who name or misrepresent others.