Mission To Mars
“We choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard” -John F Kennedy. Back in May of 1961, John F Kennedy challenged the United States to land a man on the moon, and be the first to do it. However, now the challenge has escalated from a moon landing to a landing on an entirely different planet… and living there. Many different organizations have proposed the idea and are currently working on figuring out if we can reach Mars. We have to ask ourselves, how much will it cost, who will do it, should we do it, what kind of technology will we have to develop, why should we go there of all of the planets, how will we do it, and what affect will it have on the astronauts picked to go? All of these questions …show more content…
in Wall). Although many people have supported this project, some still have questions such as who will receive the benefits of this mission, or will the reward actually outweigh the costs? The expected cost of sending supplies and 4 astronauts to Mars according to Jennifer Chu Of MIT News will be about 4.5 billion dollars. The final cost of setting up the colony however according to Robert Zubrin of the National Space Society will be 50 billion dollars. This project is much more feasible than it seems however, as Zubrin writes, “Exploring Mars requires no miraculous new technologies, no orbiting spaceports, and no gigantic interplanetary space cruisers. We can establish our first small outpost on Mars within a decade.” The support of this project has come from many sources, which provide volunteers, financial resources, and respond to the ethical questions of the mission and have brought us one step closer to putting a man on …show more content…
As Jennifer Chu writes, “In total, the eventual cost of sending supplies beforehand, and launching the 4 astronauts would be about $4.5 billion. This would also take 15 Falcon Heavy rockets. However, this cost does not contain the price of equipment needed to be developed.” These technologies are not very far from our grasp however. Simple advances need to be made in the areas of 3D printers, the growing of crops, advanced space suits, and rockets. The advancements in 3D printing technology is for the colonists to be able to print spare parts for replacing anything that may break when they settle. Next, if astronauts were to bring enough food for the entire mission, they would need three thousand and forty five pounds of it, instead new plants were developed in seed pillows with special dirt that attracts water to fight gravity when planting crops. Finally, Scientists are quickly developing a space suit that is more flexible and easy to move in called the BioSuit. With all of these advancements to get us to Mars we could be there as soon as the 2030s. Many suggestions have been made about how to colonize Mars, but only a few have been actually considered feasible. One of these plans uses the natural resources that are already on Mars to colonize it called “Mars Direct”, however due to its straightforwardness, it wasn’t seriously considered by NASA until recently. The main idea
“We choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard” -John F Kennedy. Back in May of 1961, John F Kennedy challenged the United States to land a man on the moon, and be the first to do it. However, now the challenge has escalated from a moon landing to a landing on an entirely different planet… and living there. Many different organizations have proposed the idea and are currently working on figuring out if we can reach Mars. We have to ask ourselves, how much will it cost, who will do it, should we do it, what kind of technology will we have to develop, why should we go there of all of the planets, how will we do it, and what affect will it have on the astronauts picked to go? All of these questions …show more content…
in Wall). Although many people have supported this project, some still have questions such as who will receive the benefits of this mission, or will the reward actually outweigh the costs? The expected cost of sending supplies and 4 astronauts to Mars according to Jennifer Chu Of MIT News will be about 4.5 billion dollars. The final cost of setting up the colony however according to Robert Zubrin of the National Space Society will be 50 billion dollars. This project is much more feasible than it seems however, as Zubrin writes, “Exploring Mars requires no miraculous new technologies, no orbiting spaceports, and no gigantic interplanetary space cruisers. We can establish our first small outpost on Mars within a decade.” The support of this project has come from many sources, which provide volunteers, financial resources, and respond to the ethical questions of the mission and have brought us one step closer to putting a man on …show more content…
As Jennifer Chu writes, “In total, the eventual cost of sending supplies beforehand, and launching the 4 astronauts would be about $4.5 billion. This would also take 15 Falcon Heavy rockets. However, this cost does not contain the price of equipment needed to be developed.” These technologies are not very far from our grasp however. Simple advances need to be made in the areas of 3D printers, the growing of crops, advanced space suits, and rockets. The advancements in 3D printing technology is for the colonists to be able to print spare parts for replacing anything that may break when they settle. Next, if astronauts were to bring enough food for the entire mission, they would need three thousand and forty five pounds of it, instead new plants were developed in seed pillows with special dirt that attracts water to fight gravity when planting crops. Finally, Scientists are quickly developing a space suit that is more flexible and easy to move in called the BioSuit. With all of these advancements to get us to Mars we could be there as soon as the 2030s. Many suggestions have been made about how to colonize Mars, but only a few have been actually considered feasible. One of these plans uses the natural resources that are already on Mars to colonize it called “Mars Direct”, however due to its straightforwardness, it wasn’t seriously considered by NASA until recently. The main idea