Why is a manned Mars mission incredibly more difficult than a Moon mission? (There are at least four big- pict

Answer 1

there should only be one main reason. DISTANCE.

every thing else stems from there.

fuel.
sustaining life, sustaining interest
money
return trip

Answer 2

Other than it being very far away, it is also a more hostile place than the moon - it has weather - very bad weather. The only possible reason to go to Mars is if something was there that would be worth the trip - that means a colony has to be set up on the first mission to exploit the resource immediately, and some method has to found to send it back to Earth, and still make a profit or break even.

It would be easier to live in the worst environment on Earth, rather than the best one on Mars. They would be totally dependent a lifeline from Earth - they'd have to be totally supplied with shipments from Earth on a regular basis for years before it would be self-sustaining.

Mars has nothing like Earth's Van Allen belts to deflect hard radiation from the Sun. It has a thin atmosphere with little oxygen, so the colonists would have to wear space suits to work outside the shelter.

Not to mention that they might be shot down by the Martians! ;-> Unmanned missions to Mars have a high failure rate - how would you feel about travelling in a rocket ship which was built by the lowest bidder?...

Answer 3

First of all, it's because the Moon is much closer than Mars.
Any manned mission to Mars would take at least nine months to get to its destination, and then, (even using Venus as a gravitational slingshot to return to Earth), at least six more months to get back.
Venus, BTW, would be needed, as any Mars mission trajectory that would take a spacecraft directly from Earth to Mars, when both are at their closest points in their respective orbits, would not have the luxury of planetary alignment on the return trip, after, for instance, having spent a week in Mars orbit, a week on the surface, and then, a week preparing for the trip home, 21 days after arrival.
As a consequence, Earth would not be in the proper position for a direct return, and, Venus' gravity would be used instead.
This would shorten the time of a round trip from 3 years to around 16 months. Nine months to get there, nearly a month in the vicinity of Mars, and 6 1/2 months to return.
Even with this, the risks associated with a manned mission to Mars would be many times greater than that of a Moon mission.

Answer 4

Look for the Mars Society website for a lot of details on Mars missions. These have been worked out by people who actually know what they are talking about.

http://www.marssociety.org/portal

The main problem is that it is a lot further than the Moon and it takes longer to get there and back. This means a lot of supplies, but you can get round it a bit by sending some of the supplies first. Once the supplies are on Mars and safe the astronauts leave Earth and land nearby. Once on Mars they might be able to use some Martian atmosphere to make some of their own oxygen and also Martian water. Combining water with carbon dioxide in a simple chemical reactor can also make methane fuel and also some oxygen.

They could stay six months on Mars, that makes the return journey shorter and they are safer on Mars than in space. With enough supplies and a decent place to live they could stay there for years if need be.

http://www.marssociety.org.au/

Answer 5

OK first of all we do have that technology just not the motivation

main challenges would include
long time in 0g leading to muscles and bones disintegrating

amount of supplies needed to support humans, especially being able to land everything on mars and still have enough fuel to get back into orbit

large dose of radiation while in space and while on mars, especially if they got hit by a solar flare, dangerous on a trip to the moon to but you are there for so much longer it is much more likely you will get hurt from it

time- 2 years away from home would be enough to drive just about anyone insane, and when you are stuck in a small space for 2 years with a few other people there are bound to be problems

distance- like previously stated, if you get sick you are a long way from getting help, not just 3 days but at least 6 months, best case scenario

well there are 5, there are certainly more but these are the big scientific challenges people face

Answer 6

each challenge that NASA performs ought to have congressional approval, a particular fund quantity unique, and can't deviate from this script. Congress has purely appropriated money to NASA's Human Spaceflight classes for Low Earth Orbit missions, no exceptions, ever because of the fact the Nixon administration canceled the Apollo challenge. A manned software to return to the Moon replace into authorized by using G. W. Bush, yet canceled by using the Obama administration a pair of twelve months in the past. So now, even the Constellation software seems to be killed off. remember, now that one and all the agencies that had contracts for the Apollo missions have had to alter their centers to the desires of immediately's industry, or went out of agency, the startup costs for manned spaceflight previous Earth orbit would be intense. and finally, the glaring answer is... our robotic probes can do ninety% of the flaws people can do on Mars, with 0 threat to existence or well-being of folk, and at approximately 0.002% of the completed fee.

Answer 7

It is not necessarily much more difficult. But it is about one to two orders of magnitude more expensive. At the current level the whole GDP of the world would not be enough to pay for a Mars mission and get away with it politically. I doubt the US GDP will come close twenty years from now.

Answer 8

Well, the difficulty begins when you consider the difference in distances involved between a Moon Mission and a Mars Mission...

The Moon is only 240,000 Miles away from the Earth's surface.

Mars is 141,600,000 Miles from the Sun and orbiting it at a rate of one complete revolution every 687 Earth Days.

Earth is 93,000,000 Miles from the Sun and orbiting it at a rate of one complete revolution every 365 1/4 Earth Days.

So the flight distance could be anywhere from 48,600,000
Miles (at closest approach of the two planets to each other) to 234,600,000 Miles (when the planets are fartherest apart from each other). In all discussions of the flight path, I have obviously ignored any repeated loops around the planets because we have no way to estimate how many of these might be needed on a particular mission profile.

Our space ship (still to be designed and manufactured) would need to travel at about 25,000 Miles Per Hour for the purposes of easy flight estimation (could be as fast as maybe 40,000 MPH).

So...48,600,000 Miles (nearest) divided by 25,000 Miles Per Hour = 1944 Hours Flight Time = 81 Days - One Way Flight.

And...234,600,000 Miles (fartherest distance) divided by
25,000 Miles Per Hour = 938 Days - One Way Flight.

Note: Obviously one should aim for the planets to be closest possible distance from each other.

So, at the very least we can presume ten days stageing of the mission at the ISS (several launches to complete that phase), 81 Days flight time, 15 Days orbit-land-expedition-reassemble-liftoff for return, 81 Days Return Flight Time, and 7 days to dock with the ISS and prepare to drop back to Earth via Shuttle.

10 + 81 + 15 + 81 + 7 = 194 Days = 6.4 Months Estimated
using the flight speed of 25,000 MPH.

Now consider that the crew (unknown number of crewmen) will consume air, water, food, and misc supplies for a total of something like 7 months with spares. That is a huge volume of consumeable supplies to transport.

In addition, liftoff from the Moon is relatively easy due to the low gravitational pull of the Moon (Escape Velocity is low).
On the other hand, Mars is similar in many features to the Earth, and has a gravitational pull approaching that of the Earth. Therefore, the fuel required to launch our space ship from the surface of Mars and accelerate it to 25,000 MPH could be visualized as being roughly the same amount of fuel needed for a regular lift off from Earth. All of that fuel has to be transported within the space ship, 49,000,000 Miles to Mars without a mishap and safely landed upon the surface when there.

The costs will be unbelieveable.

Answer 9

The moon is much closer, duh!!

If you went to Mars, it would be, at this time, impossible to return. Only robots can go there.

This is because the fuel you need to get to Mars is already extremely heavy, and then you need fuel to get back to Earth, right? Well, that would just put extra weight on the craft, and not to mention the equipment, people and food.

So that's why.

It's not incredibly difficult, it's impossible.

Answer 10

Manned Mars Exploration Difficulties:
Hard to travel
Very far
Hard to survive in the red planet
the orbit of mars.

Answer 11

It would take 6 months to reach Mars and a year and a half to get back -
The technology we have today doesn't support travel for that kind of distance