For thousands of year s humans have been looking up at the night sky, and trying to understand it. In 1969 humans were even able to step foot on the Moon for the very first time. But how far can humans ever reach? Will humans be able to live on Mars or the Moon anytime soon? How will they accomplish this?
Staying on mars, and the moon for a long time:
When:
NASA is hoping that humans will be able to start living on mars by the 2030’s. Mars has many aspects that will make it possible to harbour life, such as waster under the planets crust, but no human has ever stepped foot on Mars yet. Nasa has also stated that they “are going to the moon to stay by 2024” back in 2019, but we still don’t have any humans on the moon and the clock is ticking. COVID definitely helped stunt the development of this project, but the effort is still ongoing we just don’t have any exact times we might go to the moon.
Some big problems:
Even if humas will be able to live on Mars or the Moon, it won’t be pretty. NASA has done a lot of research on how human will react to being in space for long periods. Humans lose a lot of calcium in their body that is important for having strong bones. Osteoporosis is a disease that makes your bones more fragile, and susceptible to breaking. After coming back to earth, astronauts must be in a special program to try and gain back all the bone mass and muscle they lost in space, but in some cases, you may never fully gain back the bone mass you lost in space. One way astronauts help prevent this is a space treadmill to help simulate how the body feels on earth.
(Image taken from BBC: “Astronauts: What are the effects of space travel on the human body?” linked below)
Scott Kelly is an astronaut who has been on the ISS for 340 days, and since he has been back to Earth, he has spoken about some difficulties that his body is having readjusting to Earth’s climate. He said that “my muscle soreness and fatigue is a lot higher than it was last time.” he also spoke about his skin being much more sensitive to the feeling of sitting or lying down since it went so long without anything really touching it, “It’s almost like a burning feeling wherever I sit or lie or walk.”. Scott also gained 4cm of height while he was in space, but after he came back to Earth, his height went back to normal. (video he said these also in “Astronauts: What are the effects of space travel on the human body?” linked below)
More problems that many astronauts have reported and been seen having after being in Space are poor eyesight/squashed eyeballs, and blood problems like anemia. After getting their vision tested, may people have been seen with worse eyesight due to the higher pressure experienced in space compared to earth. Blood cell loss occurs in while in the zero gravity of Space. While you’re in space you can’t physically tell that you have less blood than you did before, but when being on other planets such as Earth, the Moon, or Mars, you will feel less energetic and weaker.
Getting solar power will be more difficult on mars compared to Earth since Mars is much further away to the sun than us, and is constantly covered in giant dust storms. Wind power also wont work since there is not as much atmosphere on mars. Thankfully, this wont be as big of a problem on the Moon, since it isn’t as far from the sun.
It will also take at least 8 months to travel to Mars with our current technology, and unlike the Moon humans have never even stepped foot onto Mars’s surface. There are also the obvious problems such as needing to get there and back, food, power, water, and dealing with radiation and extreme temperatures.
Some solutions to these problems:
NASA is testing out how they will be providing for the astronauts while they are on mars. They have a system to launch supplies to the astronauts on their mission, and what supplies to have during long space travel. NASA is also testing out technology on how to get oxygen on Mars. One of the best inventions that will help out the astronauts is called “MOXIE” which stands for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. MOXIE will collect the carbon dioxide from Mars’s atmosphere and turn it into oxygen that is breathable. MOXIE is a huge step in helping Mars become more livable for mankind and will even help with growing food on Mars.
(photo of MOXIE from NASA)
NASA is still working hard to this day to make humans on Mars a reality, they are constantly creating new and innovative spacesuits, means of communication, and means of transportation so humans can live and work on Mars. They are making newer more flexible space suits for better mobility, new propulsion systems to get astronauts to mars and back in 2 years, landing gear for the spacecraft, new ways to get power on Mars, inter planetary Laser communication, and even a whole lab on wheels!
NASA is coming up with ways to get basic needs like food and water to astronauts without spending a lot of time and money doing re-supply missions. Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) is a system that recycles almost all of the water that crewmates bring with them to space. It takes water from waste (such as urine), sweat, and even human breath and turns into clean drinking water. In previous years, water recovery was only at 93-94%, but now with this new design ECLSS, water recovery is all the way up to 98%. NASA is saving millions of dollars thanks to ECLSS.
(photo of ECLSS)
Many things need to be regulated to have shelter on Mars, such as safety procedures in case of an emergency, food and water which we went over already, protection against radiation, and having a space suit that you can take to go and explore the outside. The way NASA will be doing this is threw habitation modules that the astronauts will live in. NASA is trying to further understand the best way to build these to fight the elements like extreme temperature, no oxygen, and radiation on mars and the Moon. For the Moon shelter, it should be placed in a spot where it is naturally protected from the elements like next to a cliff, cave, or near the poles of the moon. The Mars shelter will need to be in a spot that best protects it from dust storms like next to a cliff or in a cave like the Moon shelter. The Mars shelter being at the poles is also a good idea, since the mars poles have ice just like the lunar poles, which can be turned into water. People can drink the water, use it to grow plants, or have it be turned into fuel.
Even when wind solar and thermonuclear power won’t work as well, NASA is still developing better ways to harvest solar power.
(fission surface power NASA)
Although NASA didn’t reach it’s goal of having humans stay on the Moon by 2024, we can only be hopeful for the future, since we have a lot of the blueprints of how to get to Mars and the Moon, we just have to get it done.
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Bibliography:
6 NASA technologies to get humans to Mars (2020) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0f-QkEVU7U (Accessed: 26 May 2024).
Astronauts: What are the effects of space travel on the human body? (2022) BBC Newsround. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/22527246 (Accessed: 21 May 2024).
Building a marsbase is a horrible idea: Let’s do it! (2019) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqKGREZs6-w (Accessed: 26 May 2024).
How we could build a Moon base today – space colonization 1 (2018) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQkz0aRDe8 (Accessed: 26 May 2024).
Humans to Mars (2023) NASA. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/humans-to-mars/ (Accessed: 26 May 2024).
Living and working on the Moon (2024) NASA. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/living-and-working-on-the-moon/ (Accessed: 26 May 2024).
Mars oxygen in-situ resource utilization experiment (moxie) (2024) NASA. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/tdm/mars-oxygen-in-situ-resource-utilization-experiment-moxie/ (Accessed: 21 May 2024).
NASA reveals plan to get humans living on Mars (2015a) BBC Newsround. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/34528622 (Accessed: 21 May 2024).
NASA sciencecasts: Water recovery on the Space Station (2023) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Rc-kS9HPQ (Accessed: 26 May 2024).
Perseverance Science Instruments – NASA science (no date) NASA. Available at: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/science-instruments/#sensors (Accessed: 26 May 2024). (I only used it for the image of MOXIE)
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Reflection:
- What question did you need to research in order to research your topic? I had to do extra research about MOXIE and the effects of space on the human body. I never intended to do any research about that at first, but one I started writing about NASA’s plans to get humans into space, I had to learn about the human body in space, then I learned about MOXIE to help make oxygen for places like Mars.
- What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project? I watched YouTube videos from Kurzkazart, a very reliable science based YouTube channel that I’ve been watching for years. I’m glad I finally got to use their videos in my research, since I like them, and they make learning about space fun. I also used several BBC articles. The BBC articles I used kept brining me to new articles also from BBC, and from NASA which helped me understand more. And I used NASA’s website, and one of their YouTube videos. NASA is probably the single most reliable source when it comes to Space.
- What was the process you used to investigate the topic? I stared by looking up some articles from NASA, and the BBC. Initially I tried to use National Geographic, but I found their website was bad, and wanted me to give them my email so I scraped them. Reading the first few articles lead me down rabbit holes, and linked me to more articles.
- How did I verify the cite and the information found? I listened to everything NASA said because they are the world leaders in space exploration, and they would know what they are talking about the most. I trusted Kurzkazart since they also do their own extensive research, and they also made videos proving how what they say is reliable, which I watched. And the BBC states when the info they say is from NASA, and I also found NASA saying a lot of the same things, so I know they weren’t lying.
- How did the completing of this challenge go? What could you have done better? I found that I had to write too much of this on my own time. I had a lot of questions about writing this, but it was hard doing it without a teacher for so long. But I think that overall I did a good job, and I followed all of the criteria. I could have split writing this project into smaller amounts each day instead of write the majority in a few days.