NASA astronauts who launch to Mars must look for signs of life there, says the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine which has published a report outlining the biggest tasks. The committee was reportedly asked to identify the highest priority science objectives for crewed missions and it has come up with 11 of them, including everything from understanding the Martian geology to risks to human life.
Titled ‘A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars’, this 240-page report is a big endorsement for human presence on Mars instead of relying on just robotic missions. This consensus by leading US scientists and engineers could provide a big boost to NASA’s Mars plans and influence exploration policies.
NASA is currently building the Artemis Program to conquer the Moon first before shifting its focus to the red planet.
Following are the 11 objectives the National Academies recommended to NASA for the crewed missions set to launch by mid-2030s.
- Finding evidence of past or present life in the exploration zone.
- Characterising water and carbon dioxide cycles (past and present) and their evolution within the exploration zone.
- Detailed mapping of the planet’s geology.
- How the Martian environment will impact crew health and how to take care of the astronauts.
- Determine what causes dust storms and how they evolved.
- Develop in-situ resource utilisation methods which could support “permanent habitation”, with water and propellants as primary focus.
- Study how Mars affects reproduction and genome function across plant and animal species.
- Study microbial population on Mars and their ‘stability” and how they can impact astronauts’ health.
- Determine the effects of Martian dust on humans and hardware.
- Study how Martian environment may influence plant and animal physiology across generations.
- Find out the impact of radiation on astronauts and how to minimise the risk.
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NASA’s roadmap to Mars
The committee has proposed that the aforementioned objectives must be achieved across four crew campaigns to Mars. The first three involve a 30-Martian day (or sol that lasts 24 hours, 40 minutes) crew mission, followed by uncrewed flight for cargo delivery, and another 300-sol astronaut mission after that. The fourth campaign would involve sending humans to three locations, and the mission would last 30-sols.
The missions will target “a low- to mid-latitude site with near-surface glacier ice and diverse geology” with a 100-km radius, which will enable in-situ resource utilisation – extracting water-ice and converting them into oxygen, water and propellant. This also warrants a drilling operation between 2-5 kilometres beneath the surface, where scientists suspect pockets of liquid water may be hidden.
The report also proposes setting up a science lab on Mars and send rock samples back to Earth after every mission.
It has also tackled a key point that may constrain a concerted effort to find life signs on Mars – ‘planetary protection guidelines.’ The scientists have recommended that NASA evolves the guidelines that seeks to prevent Earth-based microbes from contaminating Mars and vice-versa. “NASA should continue to collaborate on the evolution of planetary protection guidelines, with the goal of enabling human explorers to perform research in regions that could possibly support, or even harbor, life,” the report says.
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