A: The main threats to human health and performance associated with space flight are radiation, altered gravity fields, hostile and closed environments, distance from Earth, and isolation and confinement. These five hazards stem the health and performance risks studied by NASA's Human Research Program. They observed that some participants soon experienced depression and mood swings. Some also became hostile and, for the most part, did not speak to each other for 18 months.
Their few interactions were limited to brief conversations about the operation of the facility. Although the team later had the help of psychologists, astronauts on Mars will not have the same privilege. The results of this test have caused some researchers to question future plans to send only two astronauts to Mars in a single spaceship. Astronauts are likely to get bored, depressed, and even start to dislike each other, which could lead to their doom.
However, some researchers think that this is unlikely to happen if the two astronauts have compatible personalities. Global dust storms occur every 5.5 Earth years (three Martian years) and could last for months. In addition to covering solar panels, they could also prevent sunlight from reaching Mars, which could endanger stations and astronauts. Fortunately, dust storms on Mars are unlikely to cause serious physical damage to the seasons.
They're more of a breeze than a storm, despite the name. The levels of food and oxygen in the habitat are related because plants produce oxygen as a by-product. On Mars, that oxygen will be used to sustain the lives of astronauts. The MIT study revealed that plants will produce excess oxygen if they produce enough food to feed all the inhabitants of the habitat.
This will clearly harm the lives of astronauts because breathing excessive amounts of oxygen could kill them. However, oxygen levels would balance out if plants produced lower amounts of food, which would not be enough to feed everyone. The researchers say that this problem could be solved by developing an “oxygen removal system”, which does not exist for now. The race to take the first human to Mars is currently led by NASA, SpaceX and Blue Origin.
In fact, all three organizations already have spaceships that could take us to Mars. However, their rockets use dangerous fuels and would take too long to reach Mars from the point of view of human safety. NASA is trying to solve this problem by developing the Space Launch System that uses liquid hydrogen and some other chemicals as fuel. SpaceX is considering modifying its spacecraft to use liquid methane as fuel, while Blue Origin is making do with liquid hydrogen.
However, some still doubt that these new spaceships and fuels will take us to Mars. As the possibility of carrying out long-term manned space missions to the Moon and even to Mars becomes a reality, scientists have begun to address the problems posed by surgery in space. The unique environment of space means that sick astronauts are more likely to die from injuries and minor infections there than on Earth. Astronauts sent to the International Space Station (ISS) are often trained to perform certain medical procedures, such as giving injections, stitching wounds and even extracting a tooth.
However, they would have to quickly return to Earth in a spaceship permanently docked on the ISS if they have more serious medical problems. This could be a big problem because a one-way trip to Mars could last six months. Solar storms are also unpredictable, making the situation worse. One solution is to develop a spaceship that can take astronauts to Mars much faster.
However, astronauts are not exempt from these radiation risks even when they reach Mars. When finished, the MAV will weigh 18 tons and will carry an additional 33 tons of fuel for takeoff from Mars. This enormous weight means that it will not be able to land safely on Mars due to the planet's thin atmosphere, which could cause the MAV to burn up in the atmosphere or crash directly to the ground. For comparison, the heaviest thing we've ever landed on Mars is the Curiosity rover, which weighs just one ton.
The ERV was also created to reduce weight. Instead of creating a single spaceship that will take off from Mars and return astronauts to Earth, NASA will create a two-part system consisting of the MAV and the ERV. The MAV will take off from the surface of Mars and will transport astronauts to the ERV, which will return them to Earth. In space, the force of gravity is very low.
These systems can often draw too much fluid from our legs and deposit it in the chest and head. Astronauts may then experience motion sickness, loss of balance, and loss of taste and smell. More worrisome is the distortion of fluid in human eyes, which can cause distorted vision. Our bodies can adapt to this redistribution of fluid, but it usually takes several weeks or months.
Astronauts have encountered several constant medical problems during space flights. These include vestibular dysfunction, weight loss, height gain, upward fluid displacement, anemia, cardiovascular deconditioning, muscle atrophy, and bone loss. Almost all of these alterations can be attributed to the absence of gravitational force. Most are adaptive in nature and therefore reversible, but readaptation after returning to Earth can cause more problems (p.
ex.,. The most recalcitrant and disturbing of all these problems is the incessant bone loss associated with a negative calcium balance. This problem seems to be irreversible and critical demineralization can occur after two years in a state of weightlessness. Unless its mechanism is clarified and preventive measures are taken, bone loss may prove to be the medically limiting factor in the duration of space flight.
Now moving on to the more technical challenges, the performance of propulsion systems is a major obstacle to overcome in the space sector (Turner et al. Space is full of dangerous cosmic rays and irregular solar storms that could cause intense radiation. In fact, the development of rules and regulations must be mitigated to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy that stifles new companies, and space law must preserve the freedom to generate new ideas and implement new applications. Interestingly, this opinion is shared by the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, who once mentioned that the first manned mission to Mars will likely result in death.
With the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the subsequent beginning of the space age, the progress of space technologies has led, on the one hand, to the development of hundreds of applications (Pelton et al. Some companies use reusable launchers to reduce costs or increase launch frequencies, and it is undeniable that costs have fallen slowly, although this is largely due to the combination of country policies and market forces, but truly affordable access to space has not yet been achieved. Hadfield believes that the dangers of space and the unpredictability of spaceships will kill most astronauts long before they land on Mars. In this case, space hardware is available at such low prices that it has attracted a growing number of customers (from space agencies to institutions such as universities and schools), which in turn has allowed the creation of start-ups and spin-off companies.
NASA, private space agencies and non-profit organizations give very different figures when estimating the cost of a manned mission to Mars. Over the years, space has often been identified as the new frontier, which has fueled the imagination of writers and film directors, who created (more or less plausible) visions of a future possible thanks to fantastic advances in space technologies. .
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