People on Mars? NASA announced details of the mission planned to be carried out in the 2030s

Billed as the most ambitious human expedition into space NASA is already preparing round-trip scientific expedition to Mars, potentially in 2035. Astronauts will be able to spend about 500 days on the surface of the red planet, not counting the six to seven months it takes to get there and back.

The mission will not only be a historic milestone for the American space agency, but will also serve to reveal some geological secrets long buried in Martian soil. Human presence will provide unique opportunities to investigate the events that gave rise to the largest volcanoes in the Solar System, such as the majestic Mount Olympus, located almost 22 kilometers from the base in the Tharsis region of Mars.

In a recent article for The Conversation, Professor Joel S. Levine of the Department of Applied Sciences at the University of William & Mary, USA, described his participation and main panel as co-chair of the NASA Manned Mars Exploration Scientific Analysis Group panel. Scientific questions regarding the mission.

Mars and Earth were once “similar siblings”

“Mars is an interesting planet from a geological and atmospheric perspective,” according to Irvine, an atmospheric scientist and former NASA researcher, and one of the reasons is that it is the most Earth-like planet in our solar system. like us about 4.6 billion years ago.

When life formed here 3.8 billion years ago, Mars was not the red, dusty world it is today. At that time, it had plenty of liquid water on its surface and a denser atmosphere. These conditions lead us to question the possibility of life on that planet in the past or even today..

Today the situation is completely different: Mars’ current atmosphere is much less dense than Earth’s and consists mainly of carbon dioxide (CO2), while ours is only 0.04% for now. Additionally, low gravity causes dust particles to remain suspended in the atmosphere for long periods of time, giving it its characteristic rust color.

How can humans explore the geology of Mars?

Although robotic missions have revealed few details about the surface of Mars, Many geological features still need to be investigated, such as the differences between the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres.. The northern plains, which represent one-third of the surface of Mars, are smooth and range in altitude from 3.2 to 6.4 kilometers.

The other two-thirds of the planet, known as the southern plateaus, contain the largest volcanoes ever observed in the Solar System, as well as numerous very ancient craters formed by asteroid and meteor impacts. In this context, a manned mission to Mars could perform some tasks such as deep drilling or complex geological analyses.

According to Irvine, the main questions presented at the future mission planning panel include: existence of life on Mars today. The other question, related to the first, is: “What environmental changes caused Mars to lose abundant and widespread liquid water on its surface and some of its atmosphere?”

Moon is used as laboratory for Mars mission

Located just 386,000 kilometers from Earth, the Moon will serve as a sort of training ground for future Mars expeditions. In this sense, the Artemis program will start training much earlier, Astronauts for a long exploration of the Red Planet.

Artemis III, the first mission to take humans back to the lunar surface, is planned for 2026. The idea is for astronauts to land at the Moon’s south pole, where large bodies of frozen underground water can be found.

To stay longer on our natural satellite, astronauts can extract, melt, purify and consume this water. The mission envisages explorers settling in artificial habitats on the lunar surface and staying there for several months for research work.

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