Why is Mars Landing a problem?

Question

Why they can send rovers but they cannot send humans?
I dont understand.
What's stopping them?

Answer 1

some people will say they probably already have someone up there but the time needed to travel from here to there is longer than they would like to send someone on a mission for. tests are being run to see the long term effects of extended stay in space, and to also combat potential radiation from the sun which they would be exposed to an unkown number of times.

Answer 2

Radiation, weightlessness and just keeping the crew alive and sane are the reasons. With current technology, it takes more than two years to get there and back. In that time the crew can suffer devastating consequences to their health from prolonged exposure to weightlessness. Unless a solution is found, their muscles, bones and nervous systems will deteriorate to the point where they won't make through entry into the Martian atmosphere, let alone home. Also being cooped up in a spacecraft cut off from the rest of the human race will challenge even the most dedicated crew member mental fitness. There are many social and interpersonal issued that would need to be addressed, starting with who would be sent on a Mars expedition. Radiation from must be addressed, otherwise a Solar flare or other radiation event out there could either critically damage the spacecraft or kill the crew. The matter of cost cannot be overlooked either, this will be a very large and expensive project that would likely be an international effort. Already global co-operation in space is the norm, not the exception. Then there's the problem of building the ship and getting it to Mars. I doubt it will take off from Earth, more likely the Moon will be the launch point for any manned expedition to Mars. Like nuclear submariners, any crew bound for mars would have to take everything they need to survive along with them. if any problems arise on the spacecraft in deep space or at Mars, they will have to fix them, or die trying. There is one thing that is in our favor, namely Mars has a great deal of materials that can be used for fuel, oxygen and power production. Unmanned ships can be sent first with supplies and to fuel themselves using the Martian atmosphere and on board stores. When the astronauts do arrive, they will have a base camp and an Earth return vehicle awaiting them. There's a lot of technologies that need to be developed and proven first, but assuming some global catastrophe does not occur, I think it's likely someone will land on Mars in the next two to three decades. I think it's very likely at least some of the crew will be former or current nuclear submariners, because their experiences aboard their ships is very much like those of a long duration spaceflight.

Answer 3

The Apollo lunar landing missions required the largest rocket ever launched by NASA just to get three men and all their consumables to the Moon and back, a journey taking just under two weeks in total. Travel time just to get to Mars is on the order of six months. That's a lot of food, water and oxygen to carry along. A Mars spacecraft would need to be huge, and it could not be launched on a single rocket. It would have to be assembled in orbit.

But it's not just a question of making it bigger for the supplies but for psychological reasons too. The crew would be stuck in each other's company for the entire duration. The vessel would have to have separate rooms for people to retreat into occasionally.

Furthermore, months in space carries a huge radiation problem. On Apollo, the two weeks exposure was not a problem. If you're out for months you have a longer exposure to radiation, and you almost certainly will encounter solar flares which are potentially lethal.

So, you need a big ship with lots of space and consumables, and strong radiation shielding, which must be assembled in orbit before being shot towards Mars. That's a big and expensive project. NASA and ESA just aren't given that kind of money at the moment. A rover can be launched on one rocket and needs no consumables to keep it going. Much cheaper and easier.

Answer 4

First you need to know that there have been many more failures of landing on Mars than successes. So instead of risking human lives it is more logical to send rovers. The logistics of sending humans is a very tough act. The time it takes to get there, large amount of money it would take, and the large payload to carry on the delivery vehicle, seem to be the big hurddles. I do not think we have all the technologies yet to assure a safe landing and return of humans from another planet.Also once you get there you must establish a base to provide the basic human needs of setting up an earth like enviorment.

Answer 5

Actually, the biggest problem is expense. A manned ship round tripping to Mars would be MUCH larger (and more expensive) than the Apollo capsules that were sent to the Moon. Why? The Moon is about a quarter of a million miles away. Mars would be about 300 times that distance (you could not launch when Mars was closest) so it would require a multi-year mission. Another added expense is fuel. To carry a crew, plus all required life support needs (food, air, water, etc.) would add a significant amount of mass to the ship. More mass requires more propellant to move said mass (and the added fuel itself has mass, thus you have to bring along even more propellant, which in turn adds even more mass, and so on) Yet another problem. You need much more velocity to escape the gravity of Earth than Mars, so you need even more fuel to slow down sufficiently to attain Mars orbit. This is why New Horizons can only do a flyby of the Pluto system. It is going too fast to orbit, and there is way too little propellant to slow it down sufficiently.

I recall that NASA computed the cost of a manned mission to Mars, back in the 90's. The total cost came out to be somewhere around 12 TRILLION dollars, just a wee bit over their budget. A manned mission to Mars at this time would clearly require a multi-national effort at considerable risk. Probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Answer 6

They'll just stage it at a movie studio in California like they did the moon landing.

Just kidding. Kidding. Don't get your protractors in a bunch.

Another reason is radiation. Leaving people in space is dangerous. So far we have just done low and medium earth orbits, except for our jaunts to the moon, but even they were relatively short. A trip to mars would take approximately 3 months, one way, not includings jumping around on mars time. That is a long time to be bombarded with low to medium levels of radiation. It's not good for us little monkeys.

Answer 7

The major concern is health. No one knows for sure that an astronaut is not going to contract some malady such as appendicitis. Or, if the crew are psychologically able to live in a closed environment with other crew-members, who might just have an unrecognised psychological problem that might jeopardise the mission.

Answer 8

It's a long freakin way to go. Something like 18 months round trip, it takes a lot of time, money, resources, and technology to keep a person alive in space for that long. You don't have to feed a robot on the trip there and back.

Answer 9

Well for a start, rovers don't need air, food and water. It's far cheaper and safer to send robots.