NASA wants people on Mars within 25 years

Deadly radiation from the cosmos, potential loss of vision and atrophic bones are just some of the challenges scientists have to overcome before any future astronaut can stand on Mars, experts and senior NASA officials said on Tuesday.

The US space agency believes it can bring people to the Red Planet within 25 years, but technological and medical barriers are huge.

"The cost of resolving these funds means that in current budgets or slightly expanded budgets, they will take about 25 years to get rid of them," said former NASA astronaut Tom Jones, who fled to four missions of the spacecraft before retirement in 2001.

"We need to start now on certain key technologies," he told reporters in Washington.

At an average distance of about 225 million kilometers, Mars puts scientific problems in order of magnitude greater than anything that the lunar mission Apollo meets.

With today's rocket technology, the astronauts should reach Mars for up to nine months – physically floating floating that was long in zero gravity would be enormous.

For example, scientists believe that prolonged weight can lead to irreversible changes in blood vessels in the retina, leading to visual degradation.

And after a while in zero G, the skeleton begins to expose calcium and bones.

With the gravity of just one-third of the Earth, scientists still do not know the effects of the supposedly subtle mission on the surface of Mars.

– Better Drive – One way to reduce wear on the human body is a dramatic reduction in travel time to Mars.

Jones called for nuclear propulsion systems that would have an added advantage in the production of electricity on flights.

"If we start now, in the 25 years we can have these technologies available to help us and protect us from these long transit times," he said.

Under current conditions, only the outbound trip to Mars would take so long for each astronaut to receive the same amount of radiation than would normally be considered safe throughout his career.

"We still do not have a protection solution, in terms of protection from the cosmic rays and solar missiles you are experiencing during this transit time," Jones said.

Aerospace experts have identified several technologies that need rapid development, including spacecraft that can survive a tougher intrusion on Mars and the earth quietly, as well as the ability to pull people off the surface and return to Earth.

NASA currently has a new robotic landing gear called InSight Zoom to Mars, due to land on November 26 after flewing from California on May 5th.

A $ 993 million project aims to expand people's knowledge of internal conditions on Mars, to inform efforts to send researchers there and discover how rocky planets like the Earth have formed billions of years.

Jim Garvin, NASA's chief scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said InSight was meeting "critical unknowns" and helped build a key understanding of Mars.

In 2020, another mission will see NASA send a rover to Mars, which aims to determine the living environment of the Martian environment, look for signs of ancient life, and assess the natural resources and dangers for future human researchers.

In addition, private companies such as SpaceKs and a host of other nations build technologies that can be used on future Mars missions.

Some experts see a new moon survey as crucial to the future mission on Mars, as astronauts could learn about water extraction or technology use and apply those lessons for future missions to Mars.