Mars500 - Bringing a Manned Mission to Mars One Step Closer

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How would astronauts cope with the prolonged isolation associated with a manned mission to Mars? This was one of the many questions Mars500 sought to answer when they embarked on their simulated mission to Mars on June 3 2010, around 17 months ago. Now, on November 4 2011, after 520 days of isolation, the six man crew of Mars500 will open their hatch to the eagerly awaiting public.


These brave men have made history and helped increase our knowledge of the human psyche and our ability to cope with long missions to extraterrestrial bodies.

The spacecraft's crew is led by 38 year old engineer Alexei Sitev, and also includes Russian surgeon Sukhrob Kamolov, 32, and Russian general practitioner Alexander Smolevsky, 33. Non-Russian crew members include Italian Diego Urbina, 27, China's Wang Yue, 27, and the Roman Charles from France, 31.
More information about the Mars500 crew

And so what did they find?

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Why NASA's Manned Mission to Mars Will Happen

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Most people know that NASA recently ended the shuttle program and abandoned all plans to return to the moon. but what you may not know is that NASA has launched a much more ambitious mission. a Manned Mission to Mars. Many people do not believe any such plans will ever come to fruition; they look at the recent cuts to NASA and feel that only more will come. Many people look at the scrapped lunar mission and fear that the same will become of any future attempts at manned Mars travel. So what is the difference? Why will the a manned mission to Mars become reality when so many other projects have gone out the window? And better yet, why travel to Mars?

Getting to Mars is More Important than Going Back to the Moon

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What's the point of taking a test that you already aced? What is there to prove by doing something you have already done? NASA going back to the Moon is the equivalent of you making your bed. You learned how to do that in your childhood, and it is expected that you should be able to do it now.

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Red Dragon Mission to Mars

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Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), has developed a capsule that can take large payloads into space. On Nov. 30th 2011 they are launching one of their Dragon capsules and docking it with the International Space Station (ISS).

Dragon docked at International Space Station
Source: NASA

The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, says that they are working on upgrading the capsule so that it could take even greater payloads all the way to Mars. They have been working in conjunction with NASA to determine the feasibility and cost of such a mission and the results have been staggering.
Usually the cost of a space mission is measured in billions of dollars, but using the Dragon capsule and Falcon Heavy rocket, the cost of a mission to Mars would only be $400 million. To put that in perspective, the cost the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity is $2.5 billion. For a fraction of that price, the Dragon capsule could take a much heavier payload to Mars.

Dragon Spacecraft with Solar Panels Deployed
SpaceX

The proposed mission, called Red Dragon, would send a drill to Mars in order to take an unprecedented look beneath the Martian surface. Red Dragon would drill approximately 3.3 feet underground and sample the water ice that lies just below the soil.

A still from a SpaceX mission concept video that shows a Dragon capsule landing on Mars.

NASA plans to send Red Dragon either to the landing site of Phoenix Lander or Viking 2, both of which are known to have subsurface water ice. Red Dragon would not launch until 2018 because they are still upgrading the Dragon capsule and running it through rigorous tests to ensure it can survive the trip to Mars and the harsh environment of The Red Planet itself.

Landing site of Viking 2 in 1976
Source: NASA

SpaceX is not stopping with Red Dragon; CEO Elon Musk announced earlier this year that they hope to send an astronaut to Mars within the next 10 to 20 years. This is much faster than NASA's plans, which has a goal of man on Mars no sooner than 2035.

One thing is for sure, the ambition of SpaceX and other commercial companies will help to further the exploration of Mars, and make space exploration cheaper than it has ever been.

"Ultimately, the thing that is super important in the grand scale of history is 'Are we on the path to becoming a multi-planet species or not?' And if we're not, that's not a very bright future, we'll simply be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us." - Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX) at a conference held on 02 August 2011 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.