Friday, May 31, 2013

Manned Trip to Mars Impossible with Current Tech

NASA has concluded that a manned trip to Mars is out of the question at our present level of tech.  

This piece of very disappointing  news comes after NASA had a chance to review the Radiation Assessment Detector aboard the rover Curiosity.    Even from inside the spacecraft the RAD was able to take radiation levels while traveling from the Earth to Mars.    These levels were determined to be to high for our present level of radiation shielding. 
rFrom the Gizmodo article:
  • The findings, which are published in the May 31 edition of the journal Science, indicate radiation exposure for human explorers could exceed NASA's career limit for astronauts if current propulsion systems are used.
Go to the Gizmodo article HERE  for more on the radiation and dangers it would pose.

4 comments:

kallamis said...

Bull. Maybe if they would listen to anyone and start researching how to made the hydrogen drive more usable and powerful this wouldn't be a problem. Sitting on top of a massive fracking bomb for launch isn't a good idea to begin with, and we use the same thing to travel through space with. Time to get our heads out of our asses, and start looking at other ways that don't deafen half the planet on take off, and don't use up every bit of that fuel just to eave the freaking atmosphere.

Beam Me Up said...

I agree, that is why I qualified it...chemical rocket on a balistic trajectory ain't gonna get it done with mars as far as man goes. If they were serious they would throw some money at the ION engine that could get us there in weeks an very little chance of damage from radiation. But you got to accept the fact that we just don't have it yet

kallamis said...

Last I heard the only people working on the IOn drive were on their own. Why we insist on sitting on top of a giant bomb is beyond me.

Beam Me Up said...

Same reason we still use internal combustion engines Kall. We all KNOW there is something better out there but will not justify the expense of switching over. Human nature. Look at how long it took the average household to install simple florescent lighting!