Mission To Mars

I have a bucket list of places I would like to go see in the future: castles in France, the Richard III Visitor Center in Leicester, England, and to revisit the Tower of London. But of all the places I would like to go see, one of those places is not on the planet Earth. There is a part of me that really wants to visit the planet Mars.

A part of me can imagine being on Mars as a tourist. I can picture riding on a tour bus being driven out to all the different rovers that had been sent there. I think the highlight for me would be seeing the Ingenuity helicopter that accompanied the Perseverance rover to Mars. Since the four-pound helicopter was deployed from the rover, I have been fascinated with hearing about every flight it has taken. As of July 2021, the helicopter has taken a total of ten flights.

Seeing if Ingenuity would work on Mars is what is called a technology demonstration. No one knew if it would even work as the atmosphere on the red planet is so much thinner than it is on Earth, but it worked. Having a helicopter, like Ingenuity, with future rovers will provide a scout to help search for other areas on Mars to study. If I ever got the opportunity to visit Mars, I would love to see the helicopter in person. It would be so fascinating to me to see it fly while I'm there.

And in addition to all the abandoned technology on Mars, there are several geographical features I would be very interested in seeing. The first I would like to see is Valles Marineris, Mars' version of the Grand Canyon. It stretches across nearly a quarter of the planet's circumference, and it's much longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon itself. I was quite impressed seeing the Grand Canyon on Earth, so it would be really cool to see how the two compare.

Another site on Mars that I think would be interesting to visit is Olympus Mons, a shield volcano. I live in a region of the world where there are a lot of volcanos, but Olympus Mons is higher than Everest. It's not the tallest volcano in the solar system. (I believe the tallest is on an asteroid.) As I understand it, part of the reason this volcano is so tall is due to the planet's weak atmosphere.

I am also fascinated by the challenge of getting humans to Mars. Missions to Mars can only be sent every so often. I believe missions can only be sent every two years when the red planet is closest to Earth. And then there’s how long the voyage would take. The Perseverance rover launched in late July 2020 and landed on the planet in mid-February, 2021, a duration of around six and a half months. If humans were aboard the spacecraft, how long would a trip to Mars actually take? Would it take longer to get there since the spacecraft is transporting living beings on it?

Among the things humans would have to deal with while traveling in space are the prolonged exposure to a weightless environment for the length of the trip and the solar radiation in space. On Earth, we are protected from solar radiation by the planet’s magnetosphere. And as a species, we are designed for the specific gravity we have on earth and to breathe in the mixture of seventy-nine percent Nitrogen and twenty percent Oxygen in the air. These are just two things that we are going to have to find some kind of solution for before taking ourselves into any kind of prolonged space travel.

And then there’s Mars itself. We would need some kind of habitat to live in while we’re there and a sustainable food supply. One of the things that the Perseverance rover is doing on Mars is preparing for the possibility of having humans on the planet. One of the experiments the rover is doing is trying to produce Oxygen out of the atmosphere.

I hold out hope that in my lifetime I will see humans land on the red planet. I highly doubt I will be among them, but I can still dream of seeing Ingenuity fly on Mars in person.