Beyond building the right spacecraft to send manned missions to Mars and the technological challenges that these crews will be facing, a group of scientific experts have stated that dealing with jetlag and personality clashes will be among the biggest difficulties that astronauts will be facing when they eventually head to Mars.
According to the Daily Mail, besides jetlag and conflicts between astronauts, ugly interior design will also, surprisingly, be another thing for scientists to grapple with when they make their long journey to Mars. These obstacles were recently discussed in London last week in an event which was set up by the Mohammed bin Rashid Global Space Challenge.
During the meeting, experts spoke about the many difficulties that astronauts on manned missions to Mars would be facing, and Dr. Federico Caprotti from the University of Exeter explained that psychological issues would among the biggest problems that crews traveling to Mars would be dealing with, noting that astronauts onboard the International Space Station have a much easier time with some of these problems, given its close proximity to Earth.
"The biggest hurdles to Mars settlement are not technical but psychological. Long-range missions raise psychological questions that current knowledge in space science cannot answer. For example, the International Space Station enables a quick return and therefore a sense of psychological closeness to the Earth. Mars does not allow this, and that brings a risk of intense pressure. There is also the issue of interplanetary jetlag."
