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.
On March 21, 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.