http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6673981.html
Some experts believe it's the only way to explore the red planet and save NASA By ERIC BERGER HOUSTON CHRONICLE Oct. 19, 2009, 8:21AM A blue-ribbon panel on human spaceflight recently declared Mars to be NASA's ultimate objective, but admitted humans aren't going there any time soon. In fact, the Augustine panel appointed by President Barack Obama said that without a substantial infusion of cash, NASA couldn't even send humans back to the moon in the next few decades. Depressing news, indeed, for the city that trains and houses astronauts. But what if NASA could land astronauts on Mars in a decade, for not ridiculously more money than the $10 billion the agency spends annually on human spaceflight? It's possible, say some space buffs, although there's a catch. The astronauts we'd send would never come home. The concept of a one-way mission to Mars has circulated among space buffs for years, with a Houston-based former NASA engineer, James C. McLane III, among its chief champions. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has endorsed the plan. Relieving NASA of the need to send fuel and rocketry to blast humans off the Martian surface, which has slightly more than twice the gravity of the moon, would actually reduce costs by about a factor of 10, by some estimates. And it would captivate the country, if not the world. "It's almost the only thing that might save our space program at this point," said McLane, who believes the space agency's current programs are uninspiring to today's kids. The one-way idea appears to have increasing relevance today for a couple of reasons, but primarily because of the dour human spaceflight report delivered to Obama this month by former Lockheed Martin chief executive Norman Augustine. In 2004, President George W. Bush endorsed a plan to return humans to the moon by 2020 as a steppingstone to visiting Mars later this century. But since then funding has lagged and Augustine's panel believes that with its current funding NASA won't even get back to the moon by 2030 or later. During the next several weeks, with the new report in hand, Obama is expected to chart the future course of human spaceflight. The one-way option received a boost six weeks ago when theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that espoused the plan: "Human space travel is so expensive and so dangerous that we are going to need novel, even extreme solutions if we really want to expand the range of human civilization beyond our own planet." The director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University and author of The Physics of Star Trek, Krauss said he has received an overwhelmingly favorable response to his article. Krauss noted that President John F. Kennedy was emphatic the U.S. would not only send men to the moon, but would return them home safely. But the Mars mission could be sold to the public in other ways. Obama, for example, could say he's committed to having the first permanent human settlement on another planet. Who would go? There would likely be no shortage of volunteers, Krauss said. "It's not like you're committing yourself to die, you're committing the last part of your life to exploring a totally new environment," he said. It would be a bleak existence, though. With existing technology the trip to Mars would require six months of travel in a cramped cabin. Once on Mars, a largely frozen desert world with a thin atmosphere primarily composed of carbon dioxide, astronauts would spend most of their time in a habitat. Venturing outside for long would risk too much exposure to radiation from the sun and sources outside the solar system. For decades the colony would rely on supplies launched from Earth. "I know that a few Apollo-era astronauts have said that they would do a one-way mission," said Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut who lived more than six months on the International Space Station from 2004 to 2005. "I can't speak for my colleagues, but I can say that I would not do this." Chiao said the isolation may be depressing and he would be concerned about the possibility that the next supply ship would make it. A member of the Augustine committee, Chiao said the one-way mission did not factor into the panel's discussions. So while there's some support for a one-way mission to Mars among the space community, especially among those who worry that nothing less than sending humans to Mars will recapture the public's fancy, the idea probably remains a longshot. Radiation problem Aside from the logistics of trying to launch a rocket off the surface of Mars, perhaps the biggest challenge to sending humans to the red planet is radiation exposure in interplanetary space. Humans on Earth are shielded from radiation by the planet's atmosphere as well as a belt of charged particles - the Van Allen radiation belt - that is held in place around Earth by its magnetic field. Damaging radiation comes both from solar flares as well as cosmic rays ejected by distant exploding stars called supernova. Beyond low-Earth orbit a spacecraft would have no protection from either of these sources of radiation. "We are years away from having something that would be operationally relevant to protect astronauts," said Dr. Marcelo Vazquez , a senior scientist with National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston. This radiation wouldn't immediately kill astronauts, but it could cause problems later in life such as cancer or other diseases caused by tissue degeneration. NASA has only begun to understand the risks and solutions of radiation . *********************************** * POST TO MEDIANEWS@ETSKYWARN.NET * *********************************** Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
