Should We Send Astronauts to Mars?

February 1, 2021

One of Earth’s closest neighbors will soon have a new visitor. A robot named Perseverance is scheduled to land on Mars in mid-February. It is the fifth rover, a type of wheeled robot, that NASA has sent to the Red Planet since 1997. Scientists at the U.S. space agency will use Perseverance to explore the rust-colored landscape. The rover’s mission will include collecting samples of rocks and dust. NASA hopes that one day the first astronauts to visit Mars will be able to bring those samples back to Earth to be studied.

NASA, along with companies such as SpaceX, is already developing the technology to make such a trip possible in the next decade or two. But while most experts agree that we’ll one day be able to send humans to Mars, not all of them think we should.

Just getting there would be a huge undertaking. At least six months after blasting off, astronauts would arrive on a planet, where the air is unsafe to breathe and the average temperature is an icy-cold -81 degrees Fahrenheit.

Should we try to send humans to Mars?

Yes!

Astronauts have orbited Earth and walked on the moon, and now they live on the International Space Station (ISS). Many people think visiting another planet should be the next major step in human space exploration.

Jim Rice is a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute who worked on past Mars rover missions. He says these robots have been extremely helpful in studying Mars. But he argues that two astronauts could’ve done the same amount of work in only a month!

“People are much better explorers,” Rice explains. “Robots are just tools. They depend on human beings to tell them what to do.”

Living on Mars wouldn’t be easy, but NASA has spent years testing different technologies that would help astronauts survive there. For example, the ISS has a system that produces oxygen for astronauts to breathe. Also, before sending astronauts to Mars, NASA plans to set up a base on the moon where astronauts could better prepare for a Martian mission.

No!

NASA/JPL-Caltech

No Mars rover has traveled farther than the length of a football field in one day.

Many people think sending astronauts on a mission to Mars is too dangerous. The farthest humans have traveled is to the moon. On average, Mars is more than 100 times farther from Earth. That means astronauts couldn’t rely on deliveries of food and supplies, as they do on the ISS—and there would be no hope of being rescued if anything went wrong.

In addition to the lack of breathable air, astronauts on Mars would have to worry about deadly from the sun and deep space. On Earth, the thick atmosphere protects us from these harmful rays, which can cause cancer or brain damage. But the Martian atmosphere is much thinner.

Though humans are better explorers, many people argue that rovers like Perseverance are better-equipped to deal with the harsh environment on Mars.

“A robot doesn’t mind that there is lots of radiation or no oxygen,” says Anders Sandberg, a researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute. “It works much better under those circumstances.”

Mars Survival Guide

WHAT YOU’D EAT
You would grow some of your food, using the space-farming techniques perfected on the ISS. But a big part of your diet might come from insects, which you’d raise in bins by the thousands.

WHAT YOU’D DRINK
The water on Mars is frozen underground and probably contains toxic chemicals. So like the astronauts on the ISS, you’d probably drink purified water made from your urine!

WHAT YOU’D WEAR
You wouldn’t last long without a helmet and spacesuit. The Perseverance rover is carrying samples of different spacesuit materials to test how they’ll withstand the planet’s radiation and harsh environment.