{"id":54174,"date":"2024-01-22T10:51:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T10:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/24db6eac-3e5b-44cb-8a15-044504ba1c8e"},"modified":"2024-01-22T11:32:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T11:32:37","slug":"could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Could humans be too heavy to land on Mars?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Landing humans on Mars comes with all sorts of difficulties. But could a key issue be the weight of a lander and its cargo? <\/p>

By Lewis Dartnell\n <\/p>

Published: Monday, 22 January 2024 at 10:51 AM<\/p>

\n\n

We\u2019ve all seen the movie. The first human mission to Mars descends towards the ochre-coloured surface on a roaring column of rocket thrust.<\/p>

After touching down, the astronauts clamber down the ladder, plant a flag in the soil and snap some photos of their footprints.<\/p>

We\u2019ve done it on the Moon, so why not Mars?<\/p>

Aside from all the hazards that would need to be accounted for in order to ensure astronauts survive the journey to Mars<\/a>, (such as exposure to cosmic radiation and the effects of space on human genes<\/a>), the landing itself could actually be pretty problematic.<\/p>

Philip Metzger and his colleagues at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are raising the alarm over an issue that could potentially be very significant for human missions, but has received barely any consideration until now.<\/p>

The human body may be able to survive the journey to Mars, but what about the landing? Could humans be too heavy? Credit: \u041c\u0438\u0445\u0430\u0438\u043b \u0420\u0443\u0434\u0435\u043d\u043a\u043e \/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Landing a relatively light rover like the Perseverance rover<\/a> is one thing, but landing craft carrying the crew of astronauts \u2013 and much of the provisions and equipment needed to keep them alive on Mars for many months \u2013 would be heavy.<\/p>

And that means it needs a powerful rocket motor to touch down safely.<\/p>

For the Apollo<\/a> moonlandings, the descent motor mostly blasted dust horizontally away across the surface, and no visible crater was gouged out by the rocket.<\/p>

This is because over billions of years, the lunar surface has become compacted, and the vacuum conditions allow the rocket exhaust to disperse.<\/p>

\"The
The Apollo 11 lunar module that descended to the surface of the Moon. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Landing on Mars<\/strong><\/h2>

However, the situation is very different on Mars. Its surface material is much looser, and the atmospheric pressure serves to keep the engine plume focused on one small spot, allowing it to blast much deeper.<\/p>

This means, Metzger says, that the descent engine of a large Martian lander would blow loose rocks across the surface at high speeds up to a kilometre away \u2013 presenting a risk to the crew habitats or other equipment that the mission needs to touch down near.<\/p>

Not only that, but as a blast crater begins to form, the inclined crater walls will serve to deflect fast-moving lumps of rock back upwards into the underside of the lander, potentially causing damage.<\/p>

Even worse, if a sufficiently narrow and deep crater forms directly beneath the rocket nozzle, when the engine cuts off after landing the crater could then collapse into itself, leaving the lander in a precarious position on unstable ground.<\/p>

\"Perseverance
Perseverance rover landing on the surface of Mars. Landing a rover is one thing. What about a crewed spacecraft? Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The solution will be to make sure a suitable landing site has already been prepared before the human mission arrives.<\/p>

An advance robotic mission would be needed to level off and clear the target zone of debris, and then stabilise the surface into a resistant landing pad by cementation, or perhaps by fusing the mineral grains together with a powerful microwave beam.<\/p>

The risks are so great, says Metzger\u2019s team, that we should not even attempt human landings on Marsuntil we have reliably demonstrated the automated construction of landing pads using robots.<\/p>

They argue that the best place to practise and perfect this critical process is right on our doorstep, on the Moon.<\/p>

Prof Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist at the University of Westminster<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Lewis Dartnellwas reading <\/em>ISRU Implications for Lunar and Martian Plume Effects by Philip T Metzger et al. Read it online at arxiv.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

This article originally appeared in the July 2021 issue of <\/strong><\/em>BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landing humans on Mars comes with all sorts of difficulties. But could a key issue be the weight of a lander and its cargo? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":54175,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars.png",1920,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars-300x169.png",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars-768x432.png",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars-1024x576.png",800,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars-1536x864.png",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/could-humans-be-too-heavy-to-land-on-mars.png",1920,1080,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Landing humans on Mars comes with all sorts of difficulties. But could a key issue be the weight of a lander and its cargo?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/54174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}