Manned missions to Mars will be "an unparalleled achievement in many ways", but the risks to carry them out successfully are still high, said Spanish researcher José Antonio Rodríguez-Manfredi, Mission manager of one of the instruments carried by the Curiosity rover and Head of Department of Instrumentation and Space Exploration of the Spanish Astrobiology Centre, in an interview with Zero Gravity.
Rodríguez-Manfredi works on the development of spacial instruments to explore and characterize the geobiology of planets and satellites, as well as others used in the study of extreme environments on Earth.
Regarding to Curiosity, he is the manager of the “Rover Environmental Monitoring Station” (REMS), designed by Spanish scientists, which measures the air and soil temperatures, pressure, humidity, wind speed, and ultraviolet radiation among other values.
What is Curiosity currently working on?
During these weeks we are in 'Planetary Conjunction', since Mars is on the other side of the sun, disrupting communications between Earth and Curiosity. In this situation, the team has decided to reduce the scientific activity to its minimum: only three instruments will be operating but minimally, while the rover remains motionless. During this time, we will not send any commands. For its part, the rover will also significantly reduce its transmissions to Earth, merely sending a signal that will tell us if it is OK.
In recent weeks, we have been sending the work plan to be carried out during this period. Before this conjunction, Curiosity pierced for the first time in history the Martian surface and analyzed the samples obtained.
Which other aspects of Mars are left to study by Curiosity?
The project has set the exploration and characterization of Gale Crater as its scientific objectives because of its potential habitat for life. In that sense, Curiosity has answered many questions we had initially planned. However, Gale Crater has a wide range of environments and stores still many surprises for us. For each question we try to answer, many more arise. But ultimately, that's science.
What are the main difficulties to overcome for a succesful manned mission to Mars?
Apart from being extremely expensive, it is necessary to ensure the safety, health, and the return of the astronauts. During the trip, they would be subjected to extreme conditions, especially the radiation from the Sun. We are talking of between 9 and 10 month journey to Mars, a stay of a few more months to make the scientific mission profitable and the return trip. Today, we can still learn a lot of things about Mars via robotic missions, without having to assume these risks and high costs. However, sooner or later manned missions will be undertaken with no doubt.
The scientific community seems to disagree on whether it is better to keep sending robots or focus the efforts on manned missions instead. What is your opinion? Which option offers better results?
Undoubtedly, manned science missions could obtain tremendous results in much less time. However, the cost and the risk is high. To explain these concepts, I usually compare ground-remote robotic exploration of planets like Mars to trying to see the content of a room through a hole in the wall. Decades ago, the diameter of this hole through which we saw the room (conditioned by the tools and technology that we could send to the planet) was small compared with the much larger diameter of the hole we can see through now. It is the same in the case of Curiosity. The current scientific instruments are much more sophisticated and powerful than then. In this analogy, we now know much more about room than a few years ago. However, it would not be comparable to enter to the room and examine the inside with great detail.
As I said before, sooner or later we will set foot on Mars. This will be an achievement unmatched in many ways. Until that point, we still have a long way to go, through robotic missions which will bring samples to Earth, for example.
Curiosity can not detect life itself, but it can give us many clues about the possibilities of the existance of organisms on the planet. Should we focus our research on this direction before putting a man on Mars?
Without a doubt. NASA is already considering, for future missions, the use of instrumentation directly aimed at the detection and characterization of life, past or present. The more we know of Mars before going in person, the better.
Could the U.S. carry out this effort by itself, as it did with the Moon, despite financial difficulties and within the deadline proposed by Obama?
The titanic effort required by a mission of this magnitude is not available to any space agency alone, given the current situation. On the other hand, there have been successful examples of international collaborations in this regard, which show that these relationships work.
What investment will be needed for a manned mission? By comparison with the cost of Curiosity or Phoenix, how much would it be?
NASA has conducted a number of studies in this line. It has not disclose an exact figure of the investment needed, but stated that it would be a similar cost to the entire Apollo program, or about one hundred billion euros. However, it is a difficult question since it is still necessary to assess the cost of the infrastructure and development, and answer some questions that are unsolved yet... all aspects needed to launch a manned mission.
Could it be possible an international agreement for a cooperative mission among countries? Which countries might be interested in participating?
From my point of view, I believe that an international mission would be the most reasonable way to address this challenge. The ESA (global or even national level agencies), NASA, JAXA, Roscosmos and the Canadian CSA have previously collaborated on other space projects. Moreover, the exploration of other planets is part of their programs, so at least a priori, we can expect an appropriate disposition.
How well is Spain positioned in the Mars research race? Have the crisis and the budget cuts in science undermined the Spanish participation in programs related to Mars?
Spain occupies a consolidated position both in technological and industrial developments, as rocket science. Reaching this point has taken much time, effort, resources and investments. However, in order to maintain this position, we must keep investing in science and technology, something that is becoming increasingly difficult due to the crisis. The cuts are affecting very seriously many commitments already made as well as space programs -not just those related to Mars. This can make us lose that hard-won position.
According to several experts, the first manned mission to Mars will take place between the next 30 and 40 years. Is this feasible within the data available today?
The global financial situation does not help to take this type of challenge. However, it is reasonable to think that man can set foot on our neighbouring planet within 30-40 years. In fact, some think that even before.
Will we see considerable progress in methods of propulsion in that period of time? Nowadays, it takes about 300 days to reach Mars, how could this time be reduced in the coming years?
Since some years ago, we have seen how ion thrusters are breaking into the sector. Although they may not be comparable to chemical thrusters in terms of thrust, they can be used in weightlessness (once taken out of the Earth), being able to reach much greater speeds with them than with classical chemical propellants.
Moreover, fuel efficiency in the case of ion thrusters is higher than in the case of the chemical. This could make them particularly useful in long space travel. In such cases, it is estimated that the maximum speed that a spacecraft propelled by such engines could acquire would be about 300,000 km / h.
Some researchers such as PhD. Dirk Schulze-Makuch argue that it would be possible to establish a permanent settlement on Mars after several manned expeditions. These early settlers would extract groundwater from the poles and could grow food in greenhouses. Sounds like science fiction, but are scientists working in this direction?
Yes, many researchers, universities and several agencies are working on all aspects of travel and colonization of Mars. A few years ago the Mars500 experiment was successful. It was led by the Russian Academy of Sciences and ESA, an its goal was to simulate a trip to Mars in all its phases, for 520 days. This is just one example of the many projects and research programs that aim to define the requirements, procedures and technologies needed to establish these settlements, location and use of available resources, etc..
How could the settlers prevent polutting Mars' environment and causing potential damage to microbial life such a thing exists?
There are protocols collected in what we call "Planetary Protection" which cover not only those aspects, but also prevent Earthian life contamination when conducting sample return missions. These protocols define procedures for sterilization and monitoring everything that is sent out of our Earth. However, it is very difficult and expensive to ensure that the vehicles and the technology are absolutely free from biological contamination. Therefore, the most we can do is to reduce the likelihood of contamination everything as much as we could, but that value can never become 0.0%.
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