At one point as an elementary student, I wanted to be an astronaut. Who didn’t? Like many others, I dreamed of flying into outer space and landing on the moon. In fact, I think we were promised cities on the moon by this point.
Humans are headed back to the moon for the first time in decades! There are some test runs first, and the hope is that an Artemis mission will land on the moon by 2025. (Artemis, by the way, is the Greek goddess of the moon.) To put this in perspective, humans have not been on the moon in my lifetime, and I’m approaching that mid-century mark.
There are some disgruntled folks out there; after all, this will cost billions of dollars. There are certainly other areas that could use that money, but we have to check on the benefits of bringing people back to our nearest solar system neighbor. The first round of moon missions led to things like insulin pumps, freeze-dried food, protective coatings, and even the phones you bring with you everywhere. We even have pens that will write upside down because of those trips!
Who knows what will come out of future missions? Nobody could have predicted what we have now before that first small step for man. We already know a lot about the composition of the moon (it’s not made of cheese), but there might be deposits of valuable ores that could be useful to us on Mother Earth.
And after additional moon landings? Why, Mars, of course! The red planet awaits humans to land on it, and this seems like a bigger reality than it was a decade ago. There are some companies working on sending people to Mars as soon as 2024, but NASA has 2033 as a more realistic chance to set foot on the planet named after the Roman god of war.
Earth and Mars line up a certain way every 26 months to make that trip easier. So if a group misses out on that window, they know they will have to wait more than two years to send off the most efficient mission. There have been numerous space missions put off due to weather or last minute mechanical issues; safety has to be the first priority since space is a dangerous place to have something go wrong.
Apple TV+ has a fantastic show called For All Mankind. It’s a “What If?” kind of story that starts with the Russians beating Americans to the moon. The storyline evolves from there, looking at how history might have changed if that had happened. The show really does a nice job of mixing the drama and conflict needed in a program along with the
real scientific ideas that work on the moon and, eventually, Mars.
The third season dealt with humans landing on Mars and the race to get there first. There are three groups: Americans, Russians, and a private company. Sound familiar? Space X has been in the real-life race to Mars, along with the other superpowers in the world. The show deals with what it would be like to travel 300 million miles over seven months to get to our nearest neighbor that is a planet. Part of the distress can come when there is also a time delay for communications between Earth and Mars. If an emergency arises on these trips, it’s not as if you can have an immediate reaction, so it’s important to try to predict every bad thing that might occur and have a solution.
National Geographic also had a couple seasons of a show about traveling to Mars. They mixed a fictional story alongside interviews with actual scientists working on the problems of going to Mars. It was really well done and worth a watch if you are intrigued with the idea of going to the Red Planet.
Will we get quantifiable benefits from a trip to Mars? We won’t know until we try, but I would imagine that some of the technology developed to help us get there and survive in the harsh atmosphere could help as our own climate changes for the worse. But will the potential loss of human life in the effort be worth it? Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.
The greatest benefit that could come out of a trip to Mars would be if people all over the world worked together, both financially and scientifically, to make it happen. Imagine all the best minds working collaboratively rather than antagonistically. We might realize, as the human race, that getting along brings more good to the world than the way things currently are.
I was not alive when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. I can only imagine the excitement all over the planet. I hope to experience that when we get to Mars. And I hope it won’t take much longer.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is eunoia, which means a feeling of goodwill, as in, “The eunoia around the world was magnificent when both Russian and American astronauts set foot on Mars at the same time.” (I know those of you who read Al Batt’s column recognize this word that he used not long ago, which I happened to use in my class that same day!) Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!