Every obstacle astronauts will confront on their journey to Mars

This will bring a number of obstacles that must be solved in advance, the most important of which is just getting the astronauts there in one piece! Two Indian experts spoke at the SciTech Forum 2020, an annual event presented by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), RUDN University, and the American Astronomical Society, about these problems (AAS).

Their research findings were recently published in Advances in Aeronautical Sciences, and the report that outlines their findings was recently published online (publication date pending). Malaya Kumar Biswal and Ramesh Naidu Annavarapua—a graduate researcher and Associate Professor of Physics from Pondicherry University in India—conducted both it and the presentation at the SciTech Forum 2020. (respectively).

Mars is the most habitable planet in the solar system, second only to Earth (by terrestrial standards). Multiple lines of evidence amassed over decades have also shown that it may have formerly hosted life. Unfortunately, sending astronauts to Mars will certainly present a number of difficulties, ranging from logistics and technology to human considerations and the vast distances involved.

If NASA and other space organisations plan to launch the first crewed flights to Mars in the next decade and beyond, they must address these concerns now. Biswal and Annavarapu identified 14 distinct issues based on their analysis, which include (but are not limited to):

Each of these challenges has some degree of overlap with one or more of the others. When it comes to organising missions to Mars, for example, the sheer distance involved is an obvious challenge. As a result, launch windows between Earth and Mars only happen every two years, when our planets are closest to each other in their orbits (i.e., when Mars is in "opposition" relative to the sun).

A spaceship can travel from Earth to Mars in 150 to 300 days within these windows (about five to ten months). Resupply missions are therefore impracticable since astronauts cannot wait so long for much-needed shipments of fuel, food, and other supplies. The distances involved, as Biswal explained via email to Universe Today, also pose challenges in terms of astronaut safety and power generation:

"We cannot pull astronauts back from Mars in the event of an emergency, as we could in the case of LEO or Lunar Missions... Similarly, distance diminishes the solar flux from Earth orbit to Mars orbit, resulting in a power deficit that is critical for powering vehicles and maintaining thermal stability (again, the great distance may cause hypothermia and ice formation (particularly in the mouth)."