A Trip to Mars, the Red Planet

 A Trip to Mars, the Red Planet

Life on earth has been fraught with pestilences, pandemics, and paranoia over time, that man has always wanted to escape from reality into either an imaginary world of “make belief” or into another uncluttered, unconquered world. The quest for life in space has been a cherished dream. Astronauts have visited the Space Station many times, Space Capsules have landed on the Moon, but the ambition to reach to nearby planets has been a dream.

Reasons for colonising Mars include pure curiosity, economic interest in its resources and perhaps, an outside possibility that the settlement of outer planets could decrease the ever likelihood of human extinction.

Difficulties and hazards include radiation, exposure to its surface, its soil, low gravity, and isolation, but most of all the vast distance of Mars from Earth, a lack of water for survival, and freezing cold treacherous temperature for life.

The colonisation of Mars in particular, has received extensive treatment in the imaginary visions of Science Fiction, film, and art.

Organisations have at some time proposed plans for a human mission to Mars. While it was Wernher von Braun, the German born American Space Architect, who was the first person to make a detailed technical study of a Mars Mission.  

However, the most recent commitments to researching permanent settlement including research by public space agencies such as NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), IRSO, and private organisations like SpaceX and Virgin among others.

What does it feel, how does it smell to be on Mars?

Perseverance, NASA’s Largest Space Vehicle Rover has become the 9^th US Space craft to successfully land on Mars, Earth’s neighbour after the Moon, on 18 February 2021.

It is no fantasy for earthbound viewers to have livestreamed the landing of Perseverance millions of miles away, in London’s Piccadilly Circus, to have a first hand look at the Martian terrain through the images relayed by either NASA’s Mars Odyssey (MAVEN) or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or by European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter.

Perseverance is considered the most advanced Astro biological Laboratory ever sent to “another world” which landed safely on the floor of the vast “Jezero crater” on Thursday 04 March 2021.It was the first stop on its search for life on Mars, the Red Planet.

The Plan was to collect specimens of rocks at a spot where centuries past there was a river delta. But this could not have happened before completing software updates, deploying two wind sensors, and testing the Rover’s 7 ft long robotic arm for the first time, flexing each of its arms, including 5 Joints, over the course of two hours.

Everything meticulously controlled from Earth.

The Robotic Arm is said to be crucial to this mission as it is the primary tool the Space Scientists Team will use to closely examine the geological features of the Jezero’s crater before deciding which one to drill and sample.

All this could not have happened before years, if not decades, of planning.

We know the mission launch on 30 July 2020.It covered a distance of 470 million miles, a journey from Earth of almost 7 months. It touched down on the Martian surface at 20.55 GMT (15.55 ET) on 18 February 2021. It did its observation, and the Rover traversed the surface on Thursday 04 March 2021.

NASA Space Engineer, Rich Rieber who plotted the route of the Rover said: “Perseverance wandered and drove on the surface of Mars. First, it wandered 4 metres, then it took a 150degree left turn and then backed up 2.5 metres in its Test drive”. 

The Look on Mars today

Today we saw Mars is cold and dry with a thin atmosphere that exposes the surface to harmful levels of cosmic radiation.

But scientists believe that billions of years ago the planet appears to have been wetter with a thick atmosphere, evidenced by the presence of mudstones and sedimentary bands, able to have supported some form of life.

Victor Cherubim