Future Mars missions will represent a collaborative effort among NASA and its partners—a global achievement that marks a transition in humanity’s expansion as we go to Mars not just to visit, but to stay.
- NASA’s Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration
The CEO of Mars One, Bas Lansdorp, recently blogged about NASA’s shift towards a goal of settling Mars for good, beyond simply considering return missions. Like Bas, I agree that this is good news - ultimately there is far more value in settling Mars permanently than there is in return missions, most of the resources for which go into the space travel to and from the planet.
Of course, return missions are not in themselves a bad thing, but despite what you might intuitively think, they are not a good starting point for manned missions to Mars. The problem of getting people back from Mars is a far harder one than the one of keeping people alive on the surface of Mars and continuing to supply them from Earth.
Now, what you could do (and what NASA is currently planning) is to undertake all of the development required to take people back from Mars before sending anyone. And a lot of development is required - getting people off Mars is so difficult, The Martian made it look easy.
Consider the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). All Mark Watney needed to do was get to the MAV for the next mission (and perform some, uh, modifications) and he could get off the planet. But, as this National Geographic article describes, a MAV needs to perfectly survive a seven-month space journey to Mars, land safely without developing any faults, generate its own fuel when there (otherwise it would be far too heavy to transport there initially), remain operational through whatever Mars can throw at it without maintenance for as long as it takes for humans to arrive, then launch from the planet with no ground crew and keep its astronauts alive and safe until they can rendezvous with the spacecraft to take them back to Earth. That’s a formidable task.
A task that would be so much easier if there were already humans on Mars!
It might seem paradoxical, but return missions to Mars will be made far more achievable by the presence of a permanent settlement, whose inhabitants would be able to perform whatever maintenance, checks, and fuel and food production required for the MAV, in preparation for the return crew’s arrival. This could be a valuable service that Mars One or a similar permanent settlement mission could offer to space agencies back on Earth, to look after their MAVs or even build them as manufacturing capabilities increase, in return for funding or complex supplies such as electronics.
Maybe one day Mars One settlers will be able to send gifts back to loved ones on Earth with the NASA astronauts who came to stay.
