Malaga– Stepping on the surface of Mars could be viable from 2039 if the forecast of the American space agency NASA is fulfilled, which plans to use the Moon as a “testing platform” for innovative technology and research that will enable human beings to survive on the planet. red.
The arrival of man to Mars will be a “giant step” for humanity, but first it is necessary to return to the Moon, more than 50 years after the last Apollo mission, to deploy the technology, logistics and undertake the operations that will allow us to expand the space exploration, NASA engineer Carlos García-Galán explains to EFE.
How to live on the Moon, protect yourself, work and explore its surface are part of NASA's Artemis program, which consists of several phases: the first unmanned spacecraft was launched on November 16, 2022 and in 2026 it is planned to take astronauts to the satellite natural of the Earth.
“This decade we will be doing what we need to get back to the Moon. The next one we will focus on the infrastructure, the surface and finishing building the Gateway space station,” he details.
García Galán is the director of the Integration Office of the European Service module of the Orion spacecraft at NASA's Glenn Research Center, and is participating these days in the 'Small Satellites & Services International Forum (SSSIF)' congress, which is taking place celebrates in Malaga (south).
It will be at the end of the 1930s when work will begin on systems for Mars. The Spanish engineer hopes that at the end of that decade “or the beginning of the 40s” they will be “very advanced” to be able to take that step. “I'm still not working on it, but I definitely hope to see it,” he says.
To “accelerate” this process, it is intended to combine the work of government agencies with the innovation of private companies. “Who would have thought that there would be tourists today with ships going to Earth's orbit and on the Space Station?” He comments, referring to SpaceX or Blue Origin flights.
While it can take three or four days to reach the Moon, and “communications are already delayed by a few seconds,” Getting to Mars can be a six to nine month trip, and once there, the communication delay can be 20 minutes one way.says García-Galán.
At that distance “you can't afford it if you forget something or if it breaks, if the crew has a health problem… You can't react immediately, you have to have what you need there,” emphasizes the engineer, who He gives as an example the mythical phrase “Houston, we have a problem”, which would take 20 minutes to reach the ground, and another 20 to find out what it is.
For this reason, he maintains that we must “develop new technologies to be totally independent”, while taking advantage of the information provided by nanosatellites, which allow us to create maps on the lunar surface or create a communications network.
The Moon will be used as a “testing platform” both to establish camps where humans live and to experiment with technology, Andrés Martínez, executive of the independent Earth operations program at NASA, which includes the missions, told EFE. precursors of robotics, communication and navigation.
Martínez is immersed in organizing experts, scientists and engineers to design a system that autonomously solves any type of problem that may arise on Mars, so that an alarm is activated before it happens.
Setting foot on Mars in 2039 is the goal, the last year of the 1930s, but “it is a challenge and depends on collaborative work with the industry and coordination with the rest of the international partners, so that horizon can be “expanded.” ”, he admits.
The research necessary for the long-awaited mission includes both testing of technology equipment and the development of space agriculture and biology studies to guarantee survival and avoid damage caused to people's DNA by deep space radiation.
Many experiments have been carried out aboard the International Space Station from which lessons have been learned. “Plants use gravity like a compass, to determine where the roots go,” and it is about knowing “how much gravity is necessary to offer for the plant to germinate and grow” far from the Earth, he points out.
Because the objective is to create an ecosystem that allows survival in space. On a trip to Mars, astronauts will have to “learn to live those 80 days” and the first mission concept aims to “get there and stay” for a while, so they have to know “how to generate water.”
To understand the effects that being in space has on living beings and to protect humans, some biological experiments are carried out within the BioSentinel satellite in which NASA uses yeast because “its DNA reacts in a similar way when exposed to a high dose of radiation,” explains Martínez.
With the deployment of small satellites in lunar orbit, data will be extracted that can be used in other space missions in the future. “Human beings are going to be interplanetary because, by nature, we are explorers,” he asserts.
Conquering space was achieved much earlier in the cinema, although on many occasions with visions more typical of science fiction than reality. Andrés Martínez stays with 'Interestellar' and confesses that 'Gravity' made them “laugh” because it was more intended to “excite the general public” but was further removed from the scientific basis.