Perseverance Collects Its First Martian Rock Sample

The rock core has been sealed in an airtight titanium sample container and will be accessible in the future. 

The first piece of Martian rock, a core from Jezero Crater little thicker than a pencil, was collected today by NASA's Perseverance rover. 

The historic milestone was verified by data obtained by mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. 

The core has been sealed in an airtight titanium sample container and will be retrievable in the future. 

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are preparing a series of future flights to return the rover's sample tubes back Earth for further analysis as part of the Mars Sample Return program. 

These samples would be the first time materials from another planet have been scientifically identified , chosen and returned to our world. 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated, "NASA has a history of establishing high objectives and then achieving them, demonstrating our nation's dedication to exploration and innovation." 

“This is a huge accomplishment, and I can't wait to see what Perseverance and our team come up with next.” 

Perseverance's mission includes studying the Jezero region to understand the geology and ancient habitability of the area, as well as characterizing the past climate, in addition to identifying and collecting samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) while searching for signs of ancient microscopic life. 

“This is really a momentous moment for all of NASA research,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, assistant administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 

“We will be doing the same with the samples Perseverance gathers as part of our Mars Sample Return program, much as the Apollo Moon missions showed the lasting scientific significance of returning samples from other planets for examination here on our planet. 

We anticipate jaw-dropping findings across a wide range of scientific disciplines, including investigation into the issue of whether life ever existed on Mars, using the most advanced science equipment on Earth.”

Perseverance Rover Sample Tubes from NASA. 

The rover's sample tubes, marvels of engineering, must be robust enough to securely transport Red Planet materials back to Earth in perfect shape. 

The tubes in NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover's belly are set to transport the first samples from another planet back to Earth in history. 

Future researchers will utilize these carefully chosen samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to seek for evidence of possible microbial life on Mars in the past, as well as to address other important questions regarding the planet's history. 

On February 18, 2021, Perseverance will touch down at Mars' Jezero Crater. 

The 43 sample tubes heading to Mars, which are about the size and form of a typical lab test tube, must be lightweight and durable enough to withstand the rigors of the round journey, as well as clean enough that future scientists can be sure that what they're studying is 100 percent Mars. 

"When compared to Mars, Earth is brimming with signs of life," Ken Farley, a Mars 2020 project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, said. 

"We wanted to get rid of those indications completely so that any residual evidence could be reliably identified and distinguished when the first samples were returned."

Engineered containers have been used to transport samples from other planets since Apollo 11. 

In 1969, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin brought back 47.7 pounds (21.8 kilograms) of samples from the Moon's Sea of Tranquility in two triple-sealed briefcase-size metal cases. 

The rock boxes on Apollo, on the other hand, only had to maintain their contents immaculate for approximately 10 days – from the lunar surface until splashdown – before being taken away to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. 

The scientific value of Perseverance's sample tubes must be isolated and preserved for more than ten years. 

Sample Return from Mars

Mission scientists will decide when and where NASA's newest rover will dig for samples as it explores Jezero Crater. 

The Sample Caching System, the most complex and most sophisticated device ever launched into space, will be used to package this valuable Martian cargo. 

After the samples have been placed on the Martian surface, NASA will complete the relay by launching two more missions in collaboration with ESA (the European Space Agency). 

The sample return campaign's second mission will dispatch a "fetch" rover to collect the hermetically sealed tubes and transfer them to a dedicated sample return container within the Mars Ascent Vehicle. 

If the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover stays healthy for the duration of the mission, it may transport tubes containing samples to the area of the Mars Ascent Vehicle. 

The tubes will subsequently be sent into orbit by the Mars Ascent Vehicle. 

The last mission will send an orbiter to Mars to meet the enclosed samples, collect them in a highly secure containment capsule, and return them to Earth (as early as 2031). 

Sturdy Containers

Each sample tube is made mostly of titanium and weighs less than 2 ounces (57 grams). 

After Perseverance places the tubes on Mars' surface, a white outer covering protects them from being heated by the Sun, which may change the chemical makeup of the samples. 

The crew will be able to identify the tubes and their contents thanks to laser-etched serial numbers on the outside. 

Each tube must fit within Perseverance's Sample Caching System's stringent constraints, as well as those of future missions. 

"We discovered almost 60 distinct measurements to examine despite the fact that they are less than 6 inches [15.2 cm] long," stated JPL Sample Tube Cognizant Engineer Pavlina Karafillis. 

"Because of the complexities of all the intricate processes they would travel through throughout the Mars Sample Return mission, the tube was considered unsuitable for flight if any measurement was off by approximately the thickness of a human hair." #Jezero is 100 percent pure.# Precision engineering is just one aspect of the task at hand. 

The tubes are also the result of stringent cleaning requirements. 

All of NASA's planetary missions use stringent procedures to avoid the entry of organic, inorganic, or biological material from Earth. 

However, since these tubes may contain evidence that life previously existed elsewhere in the cosmos, the Mars 2020 team needed to further minimize the chance that they could house Earthly artifacts that would obstruct the scientific process. 

Nothing should be in a tube until the Sample Caching System starts filling it with 9 cubic inches (147 cubic centimeters) of Jezero Crater, according to the directive (about the size of a piece of chalk). 

"And they meant it when they said 'nothing,'" Ian Clark, the mission's assistant project systems engineer for sample tube cleaning at JPL, said. 

"For example, we wanted to keep the total quantity of Earth-based organic molecules in a particular sample to fewer than 150 nanograms to accomplish the type of research the project is pursuing. 

We were restricted to fewer than 15 nanograms in a sample for a group of certain chemical components - ones that are highly suggestive of life." A billionth of a gram is referred to as a nanogram. 

A typical thumbprint contains approximately 45,000 nanograms of organics, which is about 300 times the maximum permitted in a sample tube. 

The crew had to rewrite the book on cleaning in order to satisfy the mission's strict requirements. 

"All of our assembly was done in a hyper-clean-room environment, which is really a clean room within a clean room," Clark said. 

"The sample tubes would be cleaned with filtered air blasts, washed with deionized water, and acoustically cleaned with acetone, isopropyl alcohol, and other exotic cleaning chemicals in the interim between assembly processes." The crew would test impurities and bake the tubes after each cleaning for good measure. 

Each of the 43 sample tubes chosen for flight from a field of 93 had produced almost 250 pages of paperwork and 3 terabytes of pictures and movies by the time they were chosen. 

Up to 38 of the tubes onboard Perseverance will be filled with Martian rock and regolith. 

The other five are "witness tubes," which have been filled with molecular and particle contaminants-capturing materials. 

They'll be opened one at a time on Mars, mainly at sample collection sites, to observe the ambient environment and record any Earthly impurities or pollutants from the spacecraft that may be present during sample collection. 

The return and analysis of the sample and witness tubes on Earth will enable the entire range of terrestrial scientific laboratory capabilities to examine the samples, utilizing equipment that are too big and complicated to transport to Mars. 

More Information about the Mission

Astrobiology, particularly the hunt for evidence of ancient microbial life, is a major goal of Perseverance's mission on Mars. 

The rover will study the planet's geology and climatic history, lay the path for human exploration of Mars, and be the first mission to gather and store Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). 

Following missions, which NASA is considering in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to retrieve these stored samples from the surface and return them to Earth for further study. 

The Mars 2020 mission is part of a broader program that includes lunar missions in order to prepare for human exploration of Mars. 

NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans are tasked with sending humans to the Moon by 2024 and establishing a long-term human presence on and around the Moon by 2028. 

The Perseverance rover was constructed and is operated by JPL, which is administered for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration strategy, which includes Artemis lunar missions to assist prepare for human exploration of Mars. 

The Perseverance rover was constructed and is operated by JPL, which is administered for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California. 

For additional information about Perseverance, go to: 

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ 

nasa.gov/perseverance

Courtesy: NASA.gov

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Space Missions and Systems here.

How COSMOS-webb Is Mapping The Universe's Oldest Structures

When NASA's James Webb Space Telescope begins scientific operations in 2022, one of its first missions will be to record the universe's oldest structures. 

• COSMOS-Webb is the biggest mission Webb will undertake during its first year, with a broad and deep survey of half a million galaxies. 

• COSMOS-Near-Infrared Webb's Camera will scan a vast area of the sky—0.6 square degrees—with more than 200 hours of observation time (NIRCam). That's three full moons in size. 

• With the Mid-Infrared Instrument, it will map a smaller region at the same time (MIRI). 

"It's a huge swath of sky that's unique to the COSMOS-Webb mission. The majority of Webb projects go extremely deep, similar to pencil-beam surveys that examine small areas of sky "Caitlin Casey, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the COSMOS-Webb program's co-leader, said. 

We can look at big-scale features at the beginning of galaxy formation since we're covering such a wide region. 

"We'll also search for some of the earliest galaxies, as well as trace the large-scale dark matter distribution of galaxies back to the beginning." 

• Dark matter is invisible because it does not absorb, reflect, or emit light. Because of the impact it has on things that we can see, we know dark matter exists.

• With multi-band, high-resolution near-infrared imaging and an unprecedented 32,000 galaxies in the mid infrared, COSMOS-Webb will investigate half a million galaxies. 

• This survey will be a major legacy dataset from Webb for scientists researching galaxies beyond the Milky Way, thanks to its fast public release of the data. 

COSMOS started as a Hubble mission in 2002 to photograph a considerably bigger region of sky, about the size of ten full moons. 

• The cooperation grew from there to encompass the majority of the world's main telescopes on Earth and in space. 

• COSMOS is now a multi-wavelength survey that spans the whole electromagnetic spectrum from X-ray to radio. 

• The COSMOS field is visible from observatories all around the globe because to its position in the sky. 

• Because it is located on the celestial equator, it may be examined from both the northern and southern hemispheres, yielding a wealth of information. 

"A lot of extragalactic scientists go to COSMOS to conduct their analyses because the data products are so widely available, and it covers such a large area of the sky," said Jeyhan Kartaltepe, assistant professor of physics and co-leader of the COSMOS-Webb program at Rochester Institute of Technology. 

We're utilizing Webb to expand our coverage in the near-to mid-infrared portion of the spectrum, and therefore stretching out our horizon, or how far away we can see. 

COSMOS-Webb will expand on past findings to achieve breakthroughs in three areas of research: changing our knowledge of the Reionization Era, searching for early, fully developed galaxies, and understanding how dark matter evolved with star content in galaxies. 

To revolutionize our knowledge of the post-reionization period. 

The cosmos was totally black soon after the big bang. 

• Stars and galaxies, which provide light to the universe, had not yet formed. 

• The cosmos was made out of a primordial soup of neutral hydrogen and helium atoms, as well as unseen dark matter. 

• This period is known as the cosmic dark ages. 

• The first stars and galaxies appeared after several hundred million years, providing energy to reionize the early cosmos. 

• This energy broke apart the hydrogen atoms that made up the cosmos, charging them and bringing the cosmic dark ages to an end. 

The Reionization Age is the name given to the new era in which the cosmos was filled with light. 

• The primary aim of COSMOS-Webb is to study the reionization period, which occurred between 400,000 and 1 billion years after the big bang. 

• Reionization most likely occurred in little bursts rather than all at once. 

• COSMOS-Webb will search for bubbles that indicate where the early universe's initial pockets of reionization occurred. 

The team wants to figure out how big these reionization bubbles are. 

• "Hubble did a fantastic job of locating a few of these galaxies out to early periods," Casey said, "but we need many more galaxies to understand the reionization process." Scientists have no idea what type of galaxies ushered in the Reionization Era, whether they were large or low-mass systems. 

• COSMOS-Webb will be able to locate extremely big, uncommon galaxies and study their distribution in large-scale structures, which will be a first. 

So, do the galaxies that cause reionization live in a cosmic metropolis, or are they generally equally dispersed across space? 

Only a large survey like COSMOS-Webb can assist scientists in answering this question. 

Finding early, fully developed galaxies. 

COSMOS-Webb will look for fully developed galaxies that stopped forming stars in the first 2 billion years after the big bang. 

• Hubble has discovered a few of these galaxies, which call into question current theories about how the universe came to be. 

• Scientists are baffled as to how these galaxies may contain ancient stars while not generating any new ones so early in the universe's existence. 

• Many of these unusual galaxies will be discovered by the team using a big survey like COSMOS-Webb. 

• They want to study these galaxies in depth in order to figure out how they might have developed so quickly and shut off star production so early. 

Discovering how dark matter developed in relation to star content in galaxies. 

COSMOS-Webb will provide scientists with information on how dark matter in galaxies has changed through time as the star composition of galaxies has changed. 

• Galaxies are made up of two kinds of stuff: visible matter that we see in stars and other objects, and unseen dark matter that is frequently more massive than the galaxy and may surround it in a halo. 

• In galaxy creation and evolution, these two types of matter are linked. 

• However, there is currently little understanding of how the dark matter mass in galaxies' halos originated and how that dark matter influences galaxies' formation. 

COSMOS-Webb will shed light on this process by enabling scientists to use "weak lensing" to directly detect these dark matter halos. 

• Gravity from any kind of mass, whether dark or bright, may act as a lens, bending the light we see from faraway galaxies. 

• Weak lensing alters the apparent form of background galaxies, allowing scientists to directly estimate the mass of the halo's dark matter when it's in front of other galaxies. 

• "For the first time, we'll be able to measure the relationship between dark matter mass and luminous mass of galaxies back to the first 2 billion years of cosmic time," said team member Anton Koekemoer, a research astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore who helped design the program's observing strategy and is in charge of constructing all of the images from the project. 

• "That's an important era for us to understand how galaxies' mass was initially set in place, and how dark matter halos drive it. And that, in turn, may help us comprehend galaxy formation in a more indirect way." 

Data sharing with the community in a timely manner COSMOS-Webb is a Treasury initiative, and its goal is to generate datasets of long-term scientific relevance. 

Treasury Programs aim to address a variety of scientific questions with a single, consistent dataset. 

Data obtained via a Treasury Program typically does not have an exclusive access period, allowing other researchers to analyze it right away. 

• "As a Treasury Program, you agree to release your data and data products to the community as soon as possible," Kartaltepe said. 

• "We're going to create this community resource and make it publicly accessible so that other scientists may utilize it in their research." 

• "A Treasury Program commits to making all of these scientific products publicly accessible so that anybody in the community, even at very tiny universities, may have the same, equal access to the data products and then simply conduct the work," Koekemoer said. 

COSMOS-Webb is a General Observers program in Cycle 1. 

• The General Observers programs were chosen via a competitive process utilizing a dual-anonymous review mechanism, similar to the one used to distribute Hubble time. 

• When it launches in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's top space scientific observatory. 

• Webb will explore beyond our solar system to distant planets orbiting other stars, as well as the enigmatic architecture and origins of our universe and our role in it. 

• Webb is a NASA-led multinational project involving ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency as partners.

courtesy www.nasa.com

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about space based systems here.

How Many Samples Will NASA' s Perseverance Rover Collect On Mars?

On August 6, NASA's Perseverance rover tried to drill into the Martian surface for the first time after six months of traveling on Mars. 

Everything seemed to proceed according to plan, but when the rover's operators examined the sample tube after it had been sealed and stowed within the rover, they discovered it to be empty. 

• Jennifer Trosper, the Perseverance project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "It went pretty well, other than the rock reacted in a manner that didn't enable us to collect any material in the tube." 

• The mission's operators believe that when the rover bore into the rock to collect a sample, it disintegrated into a fine powder and spilled out of the tube, based on the data. 

Trosper adds, "We need a more cooperative kind of rock." 

• “This one was crumbly — it may have had a firm surface on the outside, but as we went inside, all the grains simply fell apart.” 

• This didn't happen during Earth-based testing of the sample equipment, and it hasn't happened with any of the previous Mars rovers. 

• While the sampling tube cannot be unsealed and reused, researchers had requested a sample of Martian air, which is included in the sealed tube. 

• Trosper explains, "We weren't aiming to capture the air sample, but it's not a waste of a tube." 

There are 43 sample tubes on Perseverance, so there are still lots of chances to gather Martian rocks. 

• When it comes to future sample efforts with Perseverance, Trosper believes this failed endeavor isn't a reason for worry. 

• The crew intends to utilize the scientific equipment aboard the rover to check that a sample was obtained before sealing the tube and stashing it within the rover for the next attempt, which is scheduled for early September.

During its two-year journey, the rover will gather approximately 40 samples. 

• Perseverance will eventually store these samples on Mars' surface, where they will be picked up and returned to Earth by a later NASA mission. 

• Returning the samples to Earth will enable scientists to examine them in much more depth than we can on Mars, particularly when looking for indications of previous life.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration strategy, which includes Artemis lunar missions to assist prepare for human exploration of Mars. 

The Perseverance rover was constructed and is operated by JPL, which is administered for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California. 

For additional information about Perseverance, go to: 

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ 

nasa.gov/perseverance

Courtesy: NASA.gov

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Space Missions and Systems here.

Space Mission Planning

The first thing to consider when planning a space trip is why we want to undertake it and what we expect to gain from the findings. 

The following issues concern the enterprise's viability, as indicated by the following questions: 

• How much does it set you back? 

• Is it reasonably priced? 

• Can it be done technically (and politically)? 

• How safe is it, and what are the chances of it failing? 

• Can we launch (and potentially build) the necessary vehicles in space? 

Without putting in a lot of time and effort into early research and modeling, even rough solutions to these issues are difficult to come by. 

Additionally, there are a variety of architectural variants in space ships, their sequencing, phasing, and destinations that may be used to carry out such a space mission. 

“Mission architectures” or simply “architectures” are the terms used to describe these different variants. Conducting thorough studies of each possible architectural alternative would require substantial financial resources as well as a significant amount of time and work. 

• Furthermore, while planning a human trip to Mars, it is virtually difficult to predict what the status of marginal technologies like nuclear propulsion and large-scale aero entry will be many decades from now. 

• As a result, the most common method includes a rudimentary first study to evaluate architectural alternatives, from which a small selection of preferred designs may be determined that should be investigated further. 

The initial mass in low Earth orbit (IMLEO) is often used as an approximate gauge of mission cost in early planning, and since IMLEO can generally be predicted to some degree, it is frequently used as a proxy for mission cost. 

• This is predicated on the idea that when comparing a set of possible missions to accomplish a given objective, the quantity of "stuff" that has to be transported to LEO is a significant driver of the cost.

• IMLEO is the overall mass in LEO at the start, but it doesn't say how that total mass is divided up into individual vehicles. 

• Unless on-orbit assembly is used, the mass of the biggest spacecraft in LEO determines the requirements for launch vehicle capacity (how much mass a launch vehicle must lift in “one fell swoop”). 

As a result, the early planning of space missions, as well as the preliminary selection of mission designs, is based on two linked parameters: 

(1) IMLEO, and 

(2) the necessary launch vehicle and number of launches. 

It's critical to realize that the requirements for space missions are driven by the need for vehicles to accelerate to great speeds. 

• Unlike a car, which has a big crew compartment and a tiny petrol tank, most spacecraft have huge propellant tanks and a small crew cabin. 

• A space mission is made up of many propulsion stages, each of which contains more propellants than cargo. 

Each propulsion step necessitates the acceleration of both the cargo and the propellants set aside for subsequent acceleration steps. 

• As a consequence, the majority of IMLEO is spent on propellants rather than payload. 

• The quantity of propellants transported to LEO to go from here to there (and back) becomes (at least in part) the decisive element in evaluating whether a space mission is possible and economical. 

• As we previously said, this is reflected in the value of IMLEO, which is mostly comprised of propellants rather than payload. 

• This image may alter in the future if we can effectively deliver propellants to LEO.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan 

You may also want to read more about Space Missions and Systems here.

Space Campaigns

A campaign is a collection of closely linked space missions that work together to achieve the campaign's overall objectives. 

Each mission in the campaign may be unique in certain instances, and the primary benefit given by past missions to future missions is the information acquired from previous missions, which may affect mission locations and verify instrumentation, flying technologies, or other mission design components.

• In the case of robotic expeditions to Mars, this is usually the case. 

• Prior robotic trips to Mars will be required to test new technology on Mars before they can be used by humans. 

• The campaign, which is made up of a series of human operations, will, nevertheless, develop infrastructure and improve capabilities with each mission. 

• The MEP, for example, envisions a series of exploratory robotic trips to Mars, each of which gives crucial information on where to go and what to search for in the next mission (s). 

The NASA lunar exploration project of approximately 7–9 years ago was an outline of a campaign, but the campaign was not clearly defined, apart from the fact that it would start with short-duration “sortie” flights and progress to the construction of a lunar “outpost” with unknown location and functions. 

• In reality, preliminary planning failed to address several key elements of the sortie missions or improve the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), with virtually all of the attention focused on the so-called Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). 

• NASA seems to have lost sight of the entire campaign and how the parts fit together throughout this process. 

Although ISRU for generating oxygen for ascent propulsion was a major topic for outposts, the removal of oxygen as an ascension propellant indicates that various organizations working on the lunar exploration program were not only not communicating, but were also working at cross-purposes. 

• At the highest level, a campaign should begin with a set of objectives to be met. 

• A collection of hypothetical missions that might form the basis of a campaign would be defined. 
• Campaigns are collections of missions, although the order in which they are completed may be random. 

Consider the following scenario: 

• • Each Mission has at least two potential outcomes, each with a probability associated with it. 

• • If Event A occurs, go to Mission 2A; if Event B occurs, proceed to Mission 2B. 

• • Each campaign may have a variety of potential results (each with a different series of missions, and differing cost, risk, and performance) 

A "tree-diagram" depicting various models for the campaign as routes across a space consisting of configurations of sequentially ordered missions may be used to illustrate alternative methods for carrying out a campaign. 

• A lot of researchers have been looking at methods for determining the best campaign (i.e. the best sequence of missions) based on some kind of campaign merit figure. 

• However, since this is a complicated topic, it is beyond the scope of this debate. 

The features, characteristics, and needs of the various missions that make up a campaign must be understood in order to make a smart campaign decision.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan 

You may also want to read more about Space Missions and Systems here.

Humans On Mars: A Skeptic's Perspective

It's encouraging to learn that the Mars Society is interested about creating law and order in townships on Mars. 

However, there are immediate difficulties in sending the first people to Mars for preliminary exploration, and the costs and dangers are very high. 

There are many issues to consider: 

(1) What are the primary objectives of the Mars mission? 

(2) How does robotic vs human exploration compare in terms of benefits and costs? 

(3) What are the dangers and difficulties associated with sending people to Mars? 

The dominant opinion in both scientific and futuristic circles, as we covered in earlier parts, is that the primary reason to investigate Mars is the hunt for life, which necessitates a search for liquid water (mostly past). 

Futurists and visionaries have imaginations that extend well beyond this early stage, to the point when human communities are created for their "social, inspirational, and resource worth." 

Even if we accept the implausible notion that the hunt for life on Mars is essential to exploration, the issue of comparative costs and potential outcomes based on robotic vs human exploration of Mars remains. 

The benefit-to-cost ratio for robotic exploration seems to be much higher. 

Furthermore, because the search for life is likely to fail, maybe the true benefit in investigating Mars is to learn more about why the three terrestrial planets, Venus, Earth, and Mars, came out to be so different, despite the fact that they were all equipped with comparable resources from the outset. Venus has a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, while Mars has relatively little. 

• There are ideas as to why this occurs, however it may be required to explore the planets to learn more about the geological history of how this happened. 

• In comparison to robotic exploration, sending people to Mars seems to be a highly costly and hazardous endeavor. 

• In terms of the wider, aspirational perspective stated in DRM-1, the push for a long-term human presence beyond Earth seems to be at least a few hundred years premature. 

Certainly, the existence of a few people on Mars will not alleviate any of the stresses that the Earth is experiencing owing to overcrowding, pollution, or resource depletion. 

Comparative planetology is an admirable aim, but it is unclear if human presence is required to achieve it. 

Without sending people to Mars, aren't there plenty of possibilities for international collaboration on Earth? 

By comparing bigger societal expenditures, the conclusion that the investment needed to transport people to Mars is "small" is reached. 

However, when compared to conventional space expenses, it is enormous. 

On the other hand, the claims that new technologies or new applications of existing technologies will benefit not only humans exploring Mars but will also improve people's lives on Earth may have some merit, and that the boldness and grandeur of Mars exploration "will motivate our youth, drive technical education goals, and excite the people and nations of the world" may have some merit. 

It ultimately comes down to the benefit/cost ratio, which seems to be poor in this case. 

Aside from the why and if it is worthwhile, the actual problem at hand is the technical, financial, and logistical obstacles that a human trip to Mars would face. 

Nonetheless, a human trip to Mars would be a tremendous technical feat and the pinnacle of more than 60 years of rocketry and space exploration.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan 

You may also want to read more about Space Missions and Systems here.