Category Archives: Mars

ExoMars, Mars, Schiaparelli

Nobody Said Mars Was Easy

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Schiaparelli Apparently Crash-lands on Mars

After a successful orbital insertion of the ExoMars spacecraft and detachment of the Schiaparelli lander a few days ago, we were all waiting anxiously for news from the Schiaparelli lander after it settled onto the Mars surface. Alas, it was not to be. Communications from the lander ceased 50 seconds before touchdown. Telemetry indicated that problems with the parachute caused it to detach prematurely. The thrusters didn’t fire long enough. And so, Schiaparelli apparently plunged the final distance to the surface of the planet. From all appearances, it looks like the lander crashed and was destroyed.

Mars schiaparellii crash site
This comparison of before-and-after images shows two spots that likely appeared in connection with the Oct. 19, 2016, Mars arrival of the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli test lander. The images are from the Context Camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter/NASA.

Mars  Reconnaissance Orbiter’s camera captured a before-and-after look at the landing site. The parachute is clearly visible, along with a dark spot not too far away. That dark spot is very likely Schiaparelli. The mission team, elated over the success of the orbiter (which is working fine) is surely now grieving the loss of the lander. They reported the following:

“Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometres, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h. The relatively large size of the feature would then arise from disturbed surface material. It is also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as its thruster propellant tanks were likely still full. These preliminary interpretations will be refined following further analysis.”

That further analysis will include looks at images from the HiRISE camera aboard MRO when it takes another look at the site.

We Do These things Because They are Hard

Whenever something like this happens in space, I am reminded of the words of John F. Kennedy in 1962 when he gave his “we choose to go to the Moon” speech. He was pointing out that space is hard. Humans shouldn’t shy away from doing the hard things, because surmounting odds and doing the hard stuff well is how we move ahead in any endeavor.

Mars is Hard

We all know by now that exploring Mars is challenging. About two-thirds of the missions sent to the Red Planet since the 1960s have met with disaster. That fact alone tells me that planning missions for Mars, whether they have crews or not, is still not a slam-dunk. Things can happen. Most of them have nothing to do with Mars and everything to do with human error or technological problems.

The same is true for missions to other places, too. Lunar landers, Jupiter orbiters, Saturn flybys, even the successful mission past Pluto in 2015 all had problems. Not all were fatal. In many cases, scientists and engineers were able to find solutions quickly and implement them. That’s what I mean by surmounting the odds and doing the hard stuff well. The ESA teams involved with ExoMars and the Schiaparelli lander are learning from this incident. Their next spacecraft will incorporate changes to avoid problems. They will be better for the disaster. That’s the way this space exploration thing works. We learn from our mistakes and we move on.  I wish them all the best in the next endeavor. Like all other spacecraft crews, they deserve it!

 

 

Mars

Living and Working on Mars: What Will it Be Like?

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Future Mars and Martians

Mars explorers in a harsh, familiar, and challenging environment. Courtesy NASA.
Mars explorers in a harsh, familiar, and challenging environment. Courtesy NASA.

I’m working on a project that requires me to think hard (and write about) what future colonies and research stations on Mars might be like. There’s no question that people will be heading to the Red Planet within the next decade or so. Humans have been fascinated with the place for millennia. but the details of the first missions are still pretty much in discussion. I’m not too concerned with those, although I do hope they happen soon. I’d love to see what happens to humanity when the first people set foot on Mars. It isn’t going to be a quick jaunt (as I wrote in my now-famous and still-popular fulldome show MarsQuest).

What I’m more interested in now is the second generation or even the third generation of Mars settlers. What will they be like? Will they be moms and dads with kids? Where will they live? What populations from Earth will they represent?  What will their cities be like? Will they have money? Universities? Companies? Pets? What will Martian children be like? There are so many unknowns, which is understandable since we’re talking about the future here.

Living on Mars

The technical aspects are actually pretty straightforward. Figuring out where to live will be guided by conditions on the Red Planet. The UV radiation alone will force people to live underground or in well-shielded structures. Where do the materials come from for those structures? Will the first Martian cities rise above the surface, or extend below it?

Imagine Mars explorers landing here on the Red Planet, using Mars maps with crater names that people of Earth have provided. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. Click to enlarge.
Imagine Mars explorers landing here on the Red Planet, using Mars maps with crater names that people of Earth have provided. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. Click to enlarge.

I also wonder what the Martian Gross National Product will be? At first, it will simply be knowledge. After a while, though, there will have to be some other trade relations with Earth, as Mars becomes self-sufficient. I suspect that the planet and its inhabitants will have to learn to stand on their own very quickly since help is months away (at the fastest). The people will need to be resilient in the face of a non-Earth-like habitat. Their children will be unlike any humans born before them — and, I suspect that successive generations of Martians will have different DNA from the rest of us.

It’s an interesting thought experiment, trying to imagine what the Martians 50 years or 100 years from now will be like. I suspect the whole scenario will play out similar to some science fiction books (such as Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series), but with distinctly different outcomes based on whatever and whoever it is we are at the time those missions are set up.  Someday, however, I’d like to think that Martian parents will take the kids out for some stargazing, and maybe see Old Earth from the observatory. What stories will they tell the kids?