First Stop: the Moon, Second Stop: Mars
As the Mars exploration missions get closer to happening, extensive preparation is going on to ensure the astronauts can cope while they’re up there. One of the key stages of this preparation includes spending one whole year traveling around the moon before being let loose on the Red Planet.
As the Mars exploration missions get closer to happening, extensive preparation is going on to ensure the astronauts can cope while they’re up there. One of the key stages of this preparation includes spending one whole year traveling around the moon before being let loose on the Red Planet.
Phase 2 of NASA’s plan is due to happen in the late 2020’s and is the point in which astronauts will spend their year in orbit around the moon. Phase 1 will happen in the early half of the 2020’s. Greg Williams is NASA’s deputy associate administrator for policy and plans at the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and he disclosed how the agency intends to build a gateway around the moon that would act as a testing ground for the first of the Mars missions.
This orbit base situated on the moon could also serve as a staging point where spacecraft could launch from and transport humans on to Mars. “If we could conduct a yearlong crewed mission on this Deep Space Transport in cislunar space, we believe we will know enough that we could then send this thing, crewed, on a 1,000-day mission to the Mars system and back,” Williams said. Experts feel that by astronauts spending a year orbiting the moon will be great practice and preparation for the future Mars missions. At least this way they can test all the equipment while they’re a little closer to home just in case anything does happen to go wrong.
Related Links;
More News to Read
- Why Not Use the Moon as A Gas Station to Get to Mars?
- Researchers Discover How to Store Information In Chemicals
- Are These Mini Spherical Reactors the Answer to Fusion Energy’s Problems?
- Scientists Subject Quantum Entanglement to Extreme Levels of Acceleration
- New Monster Mars Rover Looks a Little Scary
Related Coverage
- Mars Base Camp Plans Underway for NASA
- Excitement Looms as Astronomers Seek to Uncover the Universe With the James Webb Telescope
- Is it Really Possible to Create a Livable Atmosphere Up on the Moon?
- NASA Invests Into Solar Electric Propulsion For Space Exploration
- Mars Mission has been postponed until 2018
Don't miss new tech stories on Google
Add TrendinTech once in the Google app and our stories appear in your news suggestions.
Rachel Kowalski
Rachel Kowalski is the Cybersecurity Analyst at TrendinTech, where she covers vulnerabilities, ransomware, supply chain attacks, nation-state operations and the security rules shaping organizations in the United States and Europe. Before moving into journalism she worked as a threat intelligence analyst at a security vendor and later reported for CyberScoop and the security desk at Wired, covering the SolarWinds compromise and the ransomware wave that hit hospitals and pipelines. Rachel holds a Master of Science in Cybersecurity from the Georgia Institute of Technology and attends Black Hat and DEF CON in Las Vegas each year, where she follows research from the security community. She writes to make risks and countermeasures understandable to people who are not specialists.
All stories by Rachel Kowalski (214)