Category Archives: Mars

Nov. 22 (UPI) -- NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 16th flight over the weekend, the space agency announced Monday.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the helicopter captured color images of Mars' surface during the flight, which saw it travel 116 meters northeast for 109 seconds.

"Mars helicopter continues to thrive!" the lab wrote on Twitter.

The 16th flight over seven months far exceeds NASA's original plans to send the helicopter on just five flights in 30 days on Mars.

It first landed on Mars in February and flew for the first time in April, helping NASA plot the path of the Perseverance rover as it explores the Jezero Crater, drilling rock samples to hunt for signs of ancient life.

NASA announced at the end of April that it would keep a small staff on the Ingenuity team to plan future flights but Teddy Tzanetos, the NASA Ingenuity team lead, said "any flight could be our last," noting the helicopter is made with commercially available, or "off the shelf," components.

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity completes 16th flight - UPI.com

Researchers have created the first-ever map of the Martian underground by listening to the sound of wind reverberating through the layers of soil and rock near Mars' equator.

The team used instruments on board NASA's InSight probe, which landed in the flat Elysium Planitia in 2018 to study weak "marsquakes" rippling through the planet. InSight's data has previously enabled scientists to get a rough idea of the size and composition of Mars' core, as well as the nature of its mantle and thickness of its crust.

A new technique developed and finetuned on Earth now for the first time enabled a team led by Swiss geophysicists to use the lander's instruments to peek directly underneath the planet's parched surface and discover what lies within the first 660 feet (200 meters) of its crust.

"We used a technique that was developed here on Earth to characterize places for earthquake risk and to study the subsurface structure," Cedric Schmelzbach, a geophysicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), and corresponding author of the new paper told Space.com.

"The technique is based on ambient vibration," Schmelzbach said. "On Earth, you have the oceans, the winds, that make the ground shake all the time, and the shaking that you measure at a certain point has an imprint of the subsurface."

Related: NASA's InSight Mars lander 'hears' Martian wind, a cosmic first

Essentially, the commotion on the surface makes the ground vibrate. These minuscule vibrations propagate deep into the subsurface and can be picked up by sensitive instruments.

Mars, Schmelzbach said, is much quieter than Earth. There is no ocean on the planet and Mars' atmosphere is much thinner, resulting in a weaker, more feeble wind. On top of that, while on Earth geologists could use countless stations, on Mars, they only have one the InSight lander.

Yet, listening to the interaction of the Red Planet's winds with the ground underneath its craters and plains revealed the subsurface structure in astonishing detail.

"The resolution gets coarser the deeper we get," said Schmelzbach. "Close to the surface we can resolve layers that are one meter [three feet] thick. But in greater depths it is really a few tens of meters [10 meters = 33 feet]."

The map provides a fascinating glimpse into the past several billion years of Martian evolution. It reveals an unexpected layer of deep sediments as well as thick deposits of solidified lava, all covered with a 10-foot-thick (3 m) blanket of sandy regolith.

The surprising sedimentary layer, the origin of which is still a mystery, is located 100 to 230 feet (30 to 70 m) below the Martian surface, sandwiched between two solidified layers of ancient lava.

"We're still working on how to interpret that and how to date how old this layer is," he said. "But it tells us that probably the geological history at that site is really more complicated than we originally thought and that probably more processes had happened in the past at that place."

The researchers compared the two lava layers embracing this sediment with previous studies of geology of nearby craters. This data enabled them to place the origins of those layers into two important periods in Mars' geological history some 1.7 billion and 3.6 billion years ago.

On top of the younger lava layer, just below the surface regolith, is an approximately 50-feet-thick (15 m) band of rocky material likely stirred up from the Martian surface by a past meteorite impact that then rained back down to the planet's surface.

In the future, the scientists would like to see whether they could stretch their technique a little further and look even deeper, within the first few miles of Mars' crust.

"We have kind of a blind zone there at the moment," said Schmelzbach.

Earlier studies of the planet's core, mantle and crust based on InSight data have revealed surprising differences between Mars and Earth. The two planets are frequently considered solar system twins that up to a certain point shared their evolutionary paths.

Both planets developed abundant oceans of water and rich atmospheres. But then, Mars lost its protective magnetic field, which subsequently allowed the abrasive solar wind, the stream of charged particles emanating from the sun, to gradually strip the planet of its atmosphere, and Mars developed into the hostile world that it is today. Scientists hope that the two planets' geologies may provide some clues to their different paths.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday (Nov. 23.)

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NASA Mars lander makes 1st ever map of Red Planet underground by listening to winds - Space.com

New images snapped by NASA's Curiosity rover showcase the stunning, expansive landscape of Mars.

The robotic explorer, which launched to the Red Planet almost exactly 10 years ago on Nov. 26, 2011, continues to roam the Martian terrain. Recently, the Curiosity rover traveled to the side of Mars' Mount Sharp, or Aeolis Mons, a mountain that forms the central peak of Gale Crater. There, mission team members captured the beauty of the natural Martian landscape with Curiosity's navigation cameras.

However, the team "was so inspired by the beauty of the landscape, they combined two versions of the black-and-white images from different times of the day and added colors to create a rare postcard from the Red Planet," a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reads.

The colorized image, which includes added blue, orange and green colors, can be seen above. The original black-and-white images can be seen below.

Video:Curiosity at Mars' Mount Sharp Take an incredible imagery tourRelated:Amazing Mars photos by NASA's Curiosity rover

Curiosity is not the newest robot on Mars, as NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Feb. 18, 2021. But since it landed in August 2012, Curiosity has been exploring the Martian surface, gathering valuable scientific data and incredible imagery; the rover is in great shape even almost exactly a decade after launch.

The rover landed inside Gale Crater on a mission to study the possibility that the crater was once capable of hosting life. The rover has discovered a lake and streams and, two years into its mission, reached the base of Mount Sharp, which stands 5 miles (8 kilometers) tall in the center of the crater.

In August, the rover arrived at a new region in its journey, one that is intriguing to scientists because of its mineral-rich rocks and materials that could reveal information about the planet's climate. The rover has thus far traveled over 16 miles (26 km) on the Red Planet and climbed over 1,500 feet (460 meters) above where it originally landed in the crater.

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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NASA's Curiosity rover shares spectacular views of Mars - Space.com

Mars may be covered in dozens of different nonbiological "false fossils," which could interfere with the search for life on the Red Planet, two researchers say.

NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on Mars in February, and the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Rosalind Franklin rover in 2022. Both will scour the Martian surface for biosignatures traces of past life left behind from around 4 billion years ago, when the planet may have been habitable.

However, a new paper suggests a possible complication in that search.

Related: 6 reasons astrobiologists are holding out hope for life on Mars

"There is a real chance that one day, we will observe something on Mars that looks really biological, only to realize several years later, after further research, that this thing was actually formed by nonbiological processes," co-author Julie Cosmidis, a geobiologist at the University of Oxford in England, told Live Science.

Cosmidis teamed up with Sean McMahon, an astrobiologist at The University of Edinburgh in Scotland, to itemize these potential false biosignatures before the rovers find them.

A biosignature can be evidence of either an organism itself or any product it creates. By definition, such biosignatures can't be made by natural physical or chemical processes. For decades, astrobiologists have identified biosignatures on Earth in order to recognize potential forms of primitive life on other worlds.

But this hunt for biosignatures has a major limitation. "We are so good at spotting life that we see it even when it isn't there," McMahon told Live Science.

Specifically, many things that look like biosignatures at first glance can also be created without life.

"The range of structures, materials and chemical compositions that can be produced nonbiologically overlaps quite closely with the range of things that can be produced biologically," McMahon said. "Some phenomena have been debated for decades, and we're still not sure if they're biological or not."

Paleontologists have often been confused by these fake fossils, Cosmidis said. Evidence of ancient bacteria and other single-celled organisms, like algae, can be especially tricky to identify.

In 1996, scientists claimed to have found fossils of microscopic organisms in a Martian meteorite. Their discovery was hailed as the first proof of alien life and even prompted a speech from President Bill Clinton. However, further tests revealed that these fossils were completely abiotic, meaning they were not made by life-forms.

On Mars, this confusion will be even more problematic because scientists won't be able to test samples properly until they are returned to Earth, meaning it could take years to vet the Martian samples.

"The problem is that these false biosignatures are often disproved only after further analysis by different researchers, using different techniques," Cosmidis said. "But for Mars, we won't have this option" until years after the samples get collected.

"There is a wide diversity of potential false biosignatures on Mars," Cosmidis said.

One of the best examples is carbon-sulfur biomorphs tiny spheres, "similar in size to bacteria," that can form spontaneously from reactions between carbon and sulfide, Cosmidis said. Both of these reactants may have been abundant on ancient Mars, and the resulting biomorphs would also "fossilize very well in rock types that are common on Mars," she added.

"If one day we find microscopic organic filaments and spheres in Martian rocks, it will be very tempting to interpret them as fossil bacteria, but they could very well just be carbon-sulfur biomorphs," Cosmidis said.

Another example are pseudo-microbialites, which mimic physical structures created by microbes, such as stromatolites which are large structures left behind by photosynthetic algae that grow upward as cones, domes and columns. Such structures could be left behind from marine life in Mars' past oceans, but near-identical structures can also form naturally without any microbes so it will be hard to tell if they are genuine.

McMahon and Cosmidis recreated previously known false biosignatures in Martian conditions and tried to come up with new examples not yet encountered on Earth. In total, they listed more than a dozen potential fake fossils in their new paper, but many more may be out there.

The researchers hope their work will help to prevent an erroneous discovery and the resulting disappointment, which would undermine decades of work in the search for alien life.

"These errors and their corrections are a normal process in science," Cosmidis said. "But on a topic that is receiving as much attention from the public as the search for life on Mars, there is a risk that they could generate public mistrust in scientists."

However, despite their caution, the researchers say that they are fully committed to the search for life on Mars.

"We are not trying to dismiss all the efforts that NASA and ESA are currently putting into finding traces of life on Mars," Cosmidis said. "We want to support these efforts by helping the researchers involved in these missions make better and more informed interpretations of the objects they will observe."

The paper was published online Nov. 17 in the Journal of the Geological Society.

Originally published on Live Science.

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'False fossils' littered across Mars may complicate the search for life on Red Planet - Livescience.com

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has aced yet another Red Planet flight, the little chopper's 16th sortie.

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity made its latest hop on Sunday (Nov. 21), about two weeks after its previous flight. According to a description of plans for the flight published on Nov. 16, the sortie was designed to carry Ingenuity one step closer to its original airstrip, dubbed Wright Brothers Field.

"#MarsHelicopter continues to thrive!" mission personnel wrote in a tweet posted Monday (Nov. 22). "The mighty rotorcraft completed its 16th flight on the Red Planet last weekend, traveling 116 meters northeast for 109 seconds. It captured color images during the short hop, but those will come down in a later downlink."

Related: It's getting harder to fly the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars

Ingenuity's first four flights on Mars, way back in April, all began and ended from Wright Brothers Field. And as originally designed, the mission was not meant to do much more: Ingenuity launched as a technology demonstration mission meant to fly only five times within a month.

But the chopper's early flights went so smoothly that NASA decided to extend its mission and send the little helicopter to scout out ahead of its larger companion, the Perseverance rover. Recent flights have seen Ingenuity cover regions dubbed Raised Ridges and South Stah, which feature quite rough terrain for the rover to tackle but are particularly intriguing to geologists, hence the use of the airborne scout.

Ingenuity's current series of flights is hopping the little helicopter back to the Perseverance rover's landing site at Octavia E. Butler Landing in preparation for making a new excursion to a location dubbed "Three Forks" for the rover's second science campaign, according to a NASA plan published in June.

Although Ingenuity is showing no signs of flagging, the helicopter's journey has become more difficult during recent flights. The chopper, along with the rest of NASA's Mars fleet, was grounded for a few weeks earlier this autumn as the sun interrupted communications between Earth and the Red Planet.

Meanwhile, as the Martian seasons change, the atmosphere around Ingenuity is thinning, forcing the helicopter crew to increase the spin rate of the chopper's blades.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars on 16th Red Planet flight - Space.com

Snag up a popular spacefaring game and five of its expansion boards now on sale and get savings as high as 33% this week ahead of Black Friday.

The objective of Terraforming Mars is written in the game's name. One to five players can compete with one another to gain the most points towards raising the habitability of the Red Planet for future human visitors. Players gain points by raising Mars' temperature, the planet's oxygen level and by creating and expanding oceans.

The game features several card categories that allow the players some control about their play level of difficulty. Project cards stimulate the imagination by tasking players to do things like introduce plant life and build cities, and there are more than 200 different projects to complete.

The Terraforming Mars Board Game is now on sale at Amazon for $49.85, which is 29% off its usual retail price.

Terraforming Mars is an upgradable game, too. One of the unique characteristics of Terraforming Mars are its tiles, which players can place across the board illustration of the Red Planet. One available upgrade lets players add a higher visual element to their game.

Known as the Big Box, this upgrade comes with 90 special tiles to dress up the game, including a set of 3D terrain tiles. Big Box also serves as a storage solution for the main game and its expansions (which are also on sale this week).

Terraforming Mars: Big Box is now available for $121.30 at Amazon, which is a 19% savings off its retail price of $149.99.

Once you are ready for an expansion kit, there are many to choose from.

One option is Prelude, which allows players to move through the backstory of the corporations that terraform Mars. This kit offers about 90 to 120 minutes of average playtime, according to the manufacturer Stronghold Games. And just like the original game, it is intended for ages 12 and older.

Another expansion board option takes players to the other side of the Red Planet. The Terraforming Hellas & Elysium: The Other Side of Mars Expansion Board consists of a double-sided game board. Each side represents two new areas of Mars for gameplay: they include the opposite side of Mars' equator and the south polar region of the planet. This expansion kit is now 30% off its retail price, selling for $29.18 at Walmart.

Terraforming Mars Turmoil is one of the highest-rated expansions. This set is suitable for experts of the original game. It comes with a new card type called global events, which features things like dust storms and riots, plus new project cards too. You can now save 15% on this expansion, available for $29.54 at Amazon.

The Venus Next expansion kit takes the game to Earth's other celestial neighbor. Players can work to build flying cities, reduce Venus' greenhouse effect, or introduce life to the planet. Like the original game, this expansion is recommended for ages 12 and up and offers about 90- to 120-minute play. Terraforming Mars: Venus Next is now 17% off on Walmart, available now for $24.95.

One extension of the Terraforming Mars is Ares Expedition, a standalone game inspired by the original that features faster gameplay. Ares Expedition is also on sale for Black Friday, now $39.99 on Walmart (originally $49.99).

Be sure to check out Space.com'sBlack Friday space deals, or our guide to thebest Black Friday space board game deals.

Today's best Terraforming Mars deals

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Space-themed board game Terraforming Mars and its expansion sets are now on sale for Black Friday - Space.com

The Mars Hill University Department of Theatre Arts and the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART) will present two co-produced events for the 2021 holiday season: A Southern Appalachian Christmas Concert and A Christmas Carol. Both productions will be presented in-person at Owen Theatre on the university campus, and A Christmas Carol also will be available in an on-demand online format.

A Southern Appalachian Christmas Concert is Saturday, December 4, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, December 5, at 2 p.m. It will feature professional performers alongside the MHU theatre arts performance ensemble, Showstoppers. This fundraiser concert is pay-what-you-can at the door, benefiting both the theatre arts department and SARTs programming.

In-person performances of A Christmas Carol will be December 9-19, and virtual performances will be available on-demand from December 20-26. Based on the classic tale by Charles Dickens, these performances are a new adaptation of the beloved classic adapted by Dwight Chiles. The productions will be directed by Dominic Michael Aquilino and will feature Michael Lilly in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

All patrons in Owen Theatre will be required to wear a mask upon entering the facility and for the duration of the production.

Tickets for A Christmas Carol are available atwww.sartplays.com. Standard seats are $28, premium seats are $32, and the virtual pass is $25. For more information, contact the SART box office at (828) 689-1232 orsart@mhu.edu.

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Mars Hill Theatre Arts and SART Present Two Holiday Productions - WKYK

Last time we checked in on Kid Rockthe heir to a car dealership empire who reinvented himself two decades ago as a trailer park kid who rockshe was assuring us that his gay friends were totally cool with him casually throwing around homophobic slurs. Five months later, in an apparent bid to remind everyone of his alleged solidarity with the queer community, the conceptual artist straddled a gigantic penis-shaped middle finger rocket and blasted himself so hard into the air that he now resides on the planet Mars.

Or, at least, that seems to be the general gist of Kid Rocks new music video for a song called Dont Tell Me How To Live, which is about people who dont like it when other people ask them to please stop confusing ideas like patriotism and independence with blind contrarianism. Also, to please stop using homophobic slurs.

Based around the hook (and title) of a 2016 single from the Southern rock (by way of Canada) band, Monster Truck, who appear to be a Jet-meets-Lynyrd Skynyrd situation, Dont Tell Me How To Live ascends to levels of self-parody not seen since Insane Clown Posses Miracles. In fact, its so willfully, preposterously ignorant that even Weird Al chimed in to assure everyone that this was not his doing.

Kiss my ass, then you can suck a dick, rasps Kid Rock before reminding us that Aint nothing changed here, I still dont give a fuck. And yet, he subsequently ponders what the fucks up with all the backlash? before reminding us snowflakes that, as you may have already guessed, aint nobody gonna tell him how to live.

The rest of the song, of course, is a predictable grab bag of soundbites overheard at the local Outback Steakhouse on a Wednesday night: a nation of pussies is our next generation, every opinion has a millennial offended, along with repeated extolling of Constitutional Amendments One and, more fervently, Two.

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Visually, theres the aforementioned image of a winged Kid Rock waving a gun around atop his giant, phallic middle finger as it kid rock-its into the upper atmosphere, alongside churches, pit bulls, bikers, an anonymous dive bar filled with all manner of good ol (white) boys. Rock does his trademark hop-around dance moves that make it seem like hes suffering from severe bouts of athletes foot in both cowboy boots.

Dont Tell Me How To Live seems destined for much-memed infamy in the coming weeks, which of course only pours additional moonshine atop Kid Rocks strategically constructed garbage fire of a career. And yet, we cant help but cover something this egregiously bada song thats destined to be yet another barn-burner for Kid Rocks primary fan base of Nazi face tattoo having men that smack cops in the face with colostomy bags at Mr. Rocks Big Ass Honky-Tonk & Rock n Roll Steakhouse.

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Conceptual artist Kid Rock soars to Mars on a giant middle finger - The A.V. Club

DARIEN During his five years as an engineer with NASA, Matthew Gentile helped put a rover on Mars but its his work in his hometown that earned him one of scoutings highest awards

Gentile, a Darien native who currently lives in southern California, was honored with the Outstanding Eagle Scout Award for his ongoing service to scouting as a volunteer within his community.

The ceremony was held Sunday at the Andrew Shaw Memorial Scout Cabin and featured Gentile, his family, and other adults who were honored for continued participation in scouting.

Its amazing, Gentile said. This is a fantastic honor.

Gentile, a graduate of Darien High School who became an Eagle Scout with Troop 35 in 2010, works as an engineer in the aerospace industry, taking part in the creation and launch of the Mars Rover Perseverance.

Once an Eagle, always an Eagle, said Mark Kraus, scout executive with the Connecticut Yankee Council BSA.

He and others noted the lengthy commitment becoming an Eagle Scout takes, as well as the support and help from friends, fellow scouts and family.

They cant really get there without the support of their parents, Kraus said.

Gentiles father, Patrick, spoke about his sons ambitions and experiences, and how his ongoing work with scouting has helped shape his social consciousness and sense of empathy toward others.

Our responsibility rests with making sure that our children attain the highest moral and ethical standards to use their skills to attain the greatest good, he said.

The senior Gentile also expressed his appreciation for the scouting program in Darien, which he said has given both of his sons endless possibilities through a focus on character, commitment and service leadership.

At the same time, he said the local Darien group has an ongoing responsibility to make scouting available to other under-served communities throughout Connecticut.

One of only three Eagle Scouts to be given the Outstanding award in Darien, Matthew Gentile visited the East Coast for the ceremony alongside his fiance and was joined by his older brother, Danny Gentile, who became an Eagle Scout in 2006.

Matthew Gentile attributed many of his own professional skills to what he learned through the tenets of scouting.

Its been a great opportunity, he said. He said he was looking forward to starting a new job as a senior mechanical engineer for a firm in California.

Matthew Gentile was cited for his ongoing work mentoring other scouts over the past 10 years, including extensive work during the pandemic participating in the Powahay Districts online STEM Camporee and providing help for scouts with the Space Exploration Merit Badge.

Sundays event also honored other adult Eagle Scouts who continue to give their service to scouting in Darien, including Paul Cordella, Paul Dickinson, Grant Evans, Rob Farley, Chuck Hilton, Dan Kunetz, Adam McMaster, Barry McMaster, Timothy McGraw, Brett Miller, Todd Morgan, Willis Philip, Craig Schorr, David Selph, William Shannon and Cory Visi.

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NASA engineer who put a rover on Mars got his start as a Darien Boy Scout: Once an Eagle, always an Eagle - Darien Times

In a Nov. 8, 2021 op-ed, When will we finally set foot on Mars? we argued that NASA should provide greater clarity and definition concerning how humanity will return to the Moon by the mid-2020s and then go to Mars by the mid-2030s. Since then, NASA Administrator Bill NelsonClarence (Bill) William NelsonWhy science and religion come together when discussing extraterrestrial life In dramatic shift, national intelligence director does not rule out 'extraterrestrial' origins for UFOs Russia dismisses US concerns of space debris after weapons test MORE has articulated NASAs revised timeline for returning to the Moon, now no sooner than 2025. We now call on NASA and its partners to also clarify the timeline for initial human missions to Mars as well.

Two options under consideration are a long-stay (or conjunction class) mission, with approximately one and a half years on the Martian surface, during which considerable science and preparation for future missions can be performed by the astronauts; and a short-stay (or opposition class) mission, which enables significantly less overall time that the astronauts will be away from Earth but which allows for only approximately 30 days on the surface. Short-stay missions will last nearly two years in total, whereas long-stay missions will last about two and a half to three years. One of the justifications for the short-stay (opposition class) mission trajectory option is crew safety.

Regardless of which mission profile is used, crews on missions to Mars will face significant challenges and potential dangers. Crews will be traveling in an isolated vehicle in the vacuum of space, and they will also face extended time during transit to and from Mars in a microgravity environment (and with one-third Earths gravity on the surface of Mars).

During transit, they will face greater exposure to solar and galactic cosmic radiation, as well as the risk of potential serious or even catastrophic accidents resulting from mechanical failure or crew medical emergencies. As such, at first glance, the short stay option would seem to be preferable. The less time in space, the argument goes, the less potential exposure to danger.

But that is not necessarily the case, and the decision as to which trajectory to use will involve a balancing of many factors. While there are some advantages to shortening the time of the overall mission, there are also significant challenges and dangers that come with a short-stay approach.

It is true that astronauts on short-stay missions will be away from Earth for a shorter period of time. But due to the trajectory required for such missions, they will be subject to a significantly greater period in transit (to and from Mars) in deep space; that is, approximately 650 days as opposed to about 450 days for the long-stay mission. The periods in which the crew are traveling to and from Mars are considered potentially the most hazardous parts of the trip, being exposed to the deep-space environment. In fact, in the short-stay mission scenario, the crew will have to travel inside the orbit of Venus, far closer to the Sun than is the Earth, during their return trip, greatly increasing the potential dangers from solar radiation and making thermal control more difficult.

In addition, favorable launch windows for short-stay (opposition class) missions occur only once every 12-15 years, whereas launch windows occur every two years for long-stay (conjunction class) missions. One of the launch windows being considered for the first human landing (earlier Mars orbital precursor missions are also under consideration) is a short-stay mission in 2039. But 2039 is not an optimal year for an opposition class mission and would be marginal in performance even for advanced propulsion systems.

Short-stay (opposition class) missions are possible using chemical propulsion, but would require an enormous amount of propellant in comparison to that required for long-stay/conjunction class missions. Nuclear propulsion could offer significant performance advantages. But it has not yet been developed and proven, and in fact that will take many years even under the most optimistic predictions. It may not be ready by 2039 or even later, potentially delaying the first mission to long after what could be possible with conventional propulsion methods that are available today.

The development of advanced propulsion such as nuclear propulsion could be advantageous to long-term human activities on Mars, and because of the relatively long period of time that will be required to come online, its development should begin as soon as possible. But it should not be placed in the critical path to achieve having humans on Mars. It is a technology that should be integrated when it is ready. Initial Mars missions can and should be planned to utilize near-term conventional propulsion technology.

As outlined in a recent Explore Mars white paper, no matter which trajectory or mission design we chose to utilize, going to Mars will be extremely challenging and difficult. It is also possible that a short-stay option might be most practical to utilize on the very first voyage to the surface to Mars with subsequent missions utilizing the long-stay option.

Ultimately, we will need to find the right balance to best achieve mission success, taking into consideration all aspects of the journey, including crew safely, productivity and political and programmatic momentum (the importance of which should not be understated).

But we also must not be unreasonably inhibited by the risk. If we are not willing to accept some level of risk, we will never send humans to Mars or anywhere else in the cosmos. As a nation and as international partners, it is time for the United States to fully commit not only to surface activities by humans on the lunar surface starting in 2025, but also to a fully integrated program that leads to women and men walking on the surface of the red planet by the mid-2030s.

Chris Carberry is CEO of Explore Mars, Inc. and author of the book Alcohol in Space: Past, Present, Future. Rick Zucker is vice president, policy for Explore Mars, Inc.

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Two trajectories to Mars by the 2030s | TheHill - The Hill