NASA Said It Has Plans To Send A Man To Mars In The 2030s
Chris Hadfield is causing a lot of shock over a statement he made, saying that the exact same technology that took a man to the moon could very well have taken people to Mars “decades ago.” Hadfield is a retired International Space Station Commander. During his career as an astronaut, Hadfield flew inside two NASA space shuttles, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and lived aboard the International Space Station.
What the former commander actually said was that, while a flight to Mars was possible then, astronauts would never have survived the journey, reports the Sunday Express. That being said, the space agency has recently come out, stating that they have plans to send an astronaut to the red planet sometime in the 2030s, noted NASA back in 2016.
In December, 2017, President Donald Trump approved the Space Policy Directive 1, which solidified the space agency’s plans to send an astronaut to Mars in the 2030s. Space Policy Directive 1 called for an expansion of humans exploring the solar system, serving as a huge jump ahead in the colonization of space. The former administrator at NASA, Charles Bolden, revealed the plans to orchestrate how the agency would achieve the mission and overcome any obstacles they have faced in the past.
Since space exposure can wreak havoc on the human body, it was revealed by Inquisitr that scientists plan to send 20 mice out to space to see if humans can in fact survive on Mars. That report was released on July 1, stating that scientists had made their plan for 90 days out, meaning that project is growing ever closer.
In another related event of space exploration coming out of NASA before the venture to Mars, it is also known that the Trump administration announced plans in mid-June, saying humans will once again be put on the moon, this time to gather resources which can be used as rocket fuel, in another article from the Inquisitr.
In regards to safety and space travel to Mars, Hadfield described details to journalists at the Express, exclaiming that space programs like SpaceX rely on chemical propellant to leave Earth; he says this increases the dangers. Astronauts’ trips to the moon involved dangers such as starvation, the risk of explosion, and exposure to radiation. Hadfield says the even greater distance needed to travel to Mars would increase the risks immensely, due to the length of journey.
“Someone has to invent something we haven’t thought of yet.
“It sounds outlandish, but we figured out how to harness electricity and what electrons do, and that seemed crazy, and it’s revolutionized life and travel.”
Solutions to the dangers of starvation, chemical radiation exposure, and explosion could be mitigated by using a different type of fuel, hibernation capsules, lighter shields, and bio-regenerative life-support systems; however, none of the players involved in the new space race have come up with similar solutions yet, said Hadfield.
