A consortium of scientists and engineers from the United States released a report arguing that humanity is ready to take the next big step in space exploration, sending astronauts to the surface of Mars. According to the document, the first human landing on the red planet would be the most significant moment in space exploration since we stepped on the Moon more than half a century ago.
The proposal arises in the middle of an old debate. On the one hand, NASA remains committed to returning astronauts to the Moon, on the other, figures like Elon Musk argue that humanity should advance directly to Mars. The report does not enter into political or commercial disputes, it places science as the central motivation.
The main justification is direct, to look for signs of life on the red planet. According to MIT aeronautics professor Deva Newman, co-chair of the committee responsible for the study, the question of whether we are alone in the universe will never cease to be a maybe as long as there is no direct human research on Mars.
So far, NASA has managed to send five remotely controlled rovers to the planet, they expanded our geological knowledge, but it has clear limits, the report argues that only a human presence can make observations, decisions and experiments with the necessary depth.
The document with nearly 200 pages was prepared to define priority scientific objectives for manned missions, among them are the search for life, the study of Martian geology, the evaluation of human survival capacity and the identification of resources that can sustain prolonged stays.
The authors suggest an initial mission with a human stay of 30 Earth days, followed by cargo deliveries that would allow future missions of up to 300 days. Even so, the challenges are enormous, the astronauts would be exposed to deep space radiation, in addition to the risk of biological contamination of the Martian surface in case life exists there.
When this big step will happen is uncertain, there are optimistic forecasts, but history shows that technical obstacles tend to lengthen deadlines, even so, for the scientists involved, the value of the mission goes beyond technology.
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