{"id":5609,"date":"2016-04-06T09:03:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T01:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/reaching-for-the-red-planet\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:07:35","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:07:35","slug":"reaching-for-the-red-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/reaching-for-the-red-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching for the red planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mars has held a special place in the hearts of humanity since antiquity. As far back as 1500 BCE astronomers have been tracking Mars across the night sky, and its allure has finally culminated in NASA\u2019s ambitious plan to set foot on the red planet in the 2030s.<\/p>\n

It seems like the stuff of science fiction, but humans are going to Mars in just a few decades. But why Mars? And why now?<\/p>\n

These questions (and a few others concerning launch systems, interplanetary spacecraft, prolonged effects of zero gravity on the human body, and generally making sure that the astronauts who go to Mars come back again in once piece) is what brought NASA engineer and payload specialist, Dr Ravi Margasahayam, to Curtin to deliver a lecture about the NASA Mars Mission.<\/p>\n

His answer was simple: \u201cwhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we explore?\u201d he asks. \u201cHistorically mankind has always explored. It\u2019s one of two things we do best, one is to communicate, the other to travel. Our talent is to explore, not for the sake of exploration, but to improve our quality of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cExploration really drives innovation. And as we innovate more and more, that technology enables exploration.\u201d Dr Margasahayam describes it as a closed-loop system, where the success of one affects of the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look in your lifetime, my lifetime, the most significant changes happened within the last 100 years. Before that we couldn\u2019t even fly. Now we\u2019ve sent probes like Voyager I<\/em><\/a> beyond the Solar System, we\u2019ve put footprints on the Moon; we are living and working in space on the International Space Station [ISS]. Soon we\u2019ll be able to put boot-prints on Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n

56 million kilometres to go<\/h2>\n

Space is big. Mind bogglingly big<\/a>, and so is the distance between Earth and Mars. To put just how far away Mars is into perspective: if Earth were a 23-millimetre marble and Mars a 12-millimetre ball bearing, they would be \u2013 at their closest \u2013 102 metres part. That\u2019s about the length of a soccer pitch. And to get there we\u2019re talking about kicking a spacecraft smaller than a grain of sand across that space and into a goal only 12 millimetres in diameter.<\/p>\n

If that isn\u2019t an exercise in precision, then I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n

Earth and Mars\u2019 elliptical orbits mean the distance between the two planets varies, but even at their closest, they are tens of millions of kilometres apart. In 2003, Mars and Earth were only 56 million kilometres apart \u2013 the closest they\u2019d been in 50,000 years \u2013 while in 2010 this figure leapt up to 99.3 million. In 2018 it will drop back down to 57.5 million.<\/p>\n

But getting to Mars is a lot more complicated than waiting for Mars and Earth to be at their closest and then launching a rocket directly at it. We\u2019d miss; Mars would have moved in the time it took the vessel to get there. There\u2019s also the Sun\u2019s gravity to contend with; it causes flight trajectories between Earth and Mars to curve. To get around this, NASA uses an orbital transfer, which sets the flight trajectory as an elliptical orbit. In layman\u2019s terms, it sets a spacecraft\u2019s flight path in an arc so that it gradually leaves Earth\u2019s orbit to meet Mars.<\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Js0Io4qJT4c[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

This journey can take between 150 to 300 days depending on the how intense the orbital transfer\u2019s arc is.<\/p>\n

So getting to Mars is hard.<\/em> Of the 43 missions NASA has launched to the red planet, less than half have succeeded. The difficulty in getting spacecraft to Mars has earned it the nickname the Galactic Ghoul. It is why it is so impressive that NASA\u2019s first success in sending a probe to the red planet was as early as 1964, five years before the Apollo 11 Moon landing.<\/p>\n

Surviving the journey<\/h2>\n

Currently NASA is in the first phase, the Earth Reliant phase, of its three-part plan to reach Mars<\/a>. The Earth Reliant phase is focused on conducting space exploration research aboard the International Space Station until 2024. Phases two and three, Proving Ground and Earth Independent, will see new launch systems being tested from 2018 and exploration missions, such as the asteroid redirect mission planned for 2020<\/a>, begin to grow longer as they extend beyond the orbit of Earth.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
NASA\u2019s three phase plan to reach Mars. Credit: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3UkEximY6lc[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F6xJ_81TzBg[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

As the co-chair of the ISS Payload and Ground Safety Panel, Dr Margasahayam is heavily involved with supporting the ISS and ensuring that payloads full of food, water, equipment and supplies arrive at the station up to four times a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety of the astronauts in space depends on the quality of work I do on Earth,\u201d Dr Margasahayam explains. \u201cSuppose I send some liquid, I have to make sure it won\u2019t contaminate the station.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with liquids and their potential to leak, there are lasers, sharp edges, fire and chemical hazards, explosion risks \u2013 and, in the next payload, about 70 mice to consider too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mice device and its experiment is from JAXA, Japan\u2019s space agency,\u201d Dr Margasahayam says. \u201cI have to make sure they can\u2019t escape and that their food, water and waste is contained.\u201d<\/p>\n

A large part of his work involves sending experiments up to the ISS, which will further develop knowledge for not just for getting to Mars, but also for surviving there.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, I\u2019m supporting about 1,700 experiments from 60 different countries,\u201d Dr Margasahayam says.<\/p>\n

Missions such as astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienk\u2019s year in space also play a vital role in not only conducting research on the ISS, but being the subject of research themselves \u2013 particularly with how the human body responds to long periods of weightlessness and other hazards, such as space radiation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring their record-setting mission, nearly 400 investigations were conducted that advance NASA\u2019s mission to reach new heights, reveal the unknown, and\u00a0benefit\u00a0all of humanity<\/a>,\u201d NASA reported in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cKelly and Kornienko participated in\u00a0dozens of studies<\/a>\u00a0to provide new insights into how the human body\u00a0adjusts to weightlessness<\/a>, isolation,\u00a0radiation<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0stress of long-duration spaceflight<\/a>, which will include the\u00a0Journey to Mars<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
Kelly and Kornienk\u2019s year in space documented the first plants grown in space \u2013 Zinnia flowers and red romaine lettuce. This is just one experiment that will help NASA develop the technology to grow food in deep-space and on Mars. Credit: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
An artist concept depicts a greenhouse on the surface of Mars. Plants are growing with the help of red, blue and green LED light bars and a hydroponic cultivation approach. Image credit: SAIC. Source: nasa.gov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than rocket science<\/h2>\n

Just as the Apollo program spurred science, engineering and technology forward several giant steps through the 60s, 70s and 80s, the Mars Mission is set to take our knowledge forward yet again. Where the Apollo program was crucial to the development of flight navigation, machine automation, and small-scale integration circuits (the predecessor of modern computer chips, which are the cornerstones of all things digital), NASA\u2019s Mars Mission is leading to a new wave of developments in science, technology, engineering, biology and medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the ISS and in going to Mars, there are a lot of technological challenges,\u201d says Dr Margasahayam. \u201cThese challenges are being met by existing technology as well as developing technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, the astronauts headed to Mars won\u2019t be the only ones to reap the benefits either. Us Earthlings will too. In fact, we already are.<\/p>\n

Take nanofiber filters<\/a>. Originally designed to purify water in space, in particular to extract water from buried glaciers on Mars, they are now used in remote villages as well as in water bottles that let hikers and adventurers stay safely hydrated using streams and lakes.<\/p>\n

A DNA\/RNA tool to diagnose and treat diseases<\/a> in astronauts on years-long missions is pushing the medical field to new heights. According to NASA, the tool, called an X-Aptamer, could also be used to carry and attach a chemotherapy drug to a tumour, sparing other parts of the body from receiving the treatment.<\/p>\n

For the brewers among us, new technology to convert Mars\u2019 air (which is 96 per cent carbon dioxide) into oxygen now offers a way to cut the cost of carbonating beer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These have all been made possible thanks to spinoffs \u2013 the commercial venture of a particular technology. In the past NASA spinoffs have led to the microwave oven landing in our homes, along with home insulation, memory foam, the ear thermostat, Kevlar and Velcro. Even something as simple as an engineering checklist has its origins in space exploration.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing to Mars is a project in serendipity, we don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going to lead,\u201d says Arun D\u2019Souza, principal of X21e and orchestrator of Dr Margasahayam\u2019s visit to Curtin. \u201cThe engineers in my generation don\u2019t know what the next generation\u2019s going to be doing when the challenges of getting to Mars are put in front of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be so many spinoffs that we don\u2019t know about. It may be ideas in people\u2019s minds, it may not even be an idea yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015 alone, NASA featured 44 spinoff ventures in its annual Spinoff<\/em><\/a> publication. Since 1976 Spinoff<\/em> has, according to NASA, been published every year since, sharing the stories of nearly 2,000 products and services that began as, or have benefited from, NASA technology.<\/p>\n

Ready for tomorrow?<\/h2>\n

Getting to Mars is not just a job for today\u2019s engineers and scientists. 2030 might seem like a long way off, but in four year\u2019s time \u2013 the time it takes to do an undergraduate engineering or science degree \u2013 the Orion spacecraft that will take crews to Mars will be tried and tested; a new Space Launch System (SLS) \u2013 the most powerful ever built \u2013 will be ready to propel the Orion and its crew into deep space; and NASA\u2019s 2020 asteroid redirect mission to capture a boulder from a passing asteroid will be underway.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Orion spacecraft after a successful flight test in December 2014. Credit: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 2020s and 2030s are set to be some of the most exciting times for space exploration as NASA\u2019s proving ground missions take humanity further from Earth than ever before. But, their success hinges on the people on the ground developing the technology in the first place \u2013 the mathematicians, the physicists, the scientists and the engineers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the curiosities of humankind is that we want to find out where we came from and where we are going,\u201d says Dr Margasahayam. \u201cMars is a destination. We always like challenges; we like to explore. It\u2019s in our DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

To quote astronaut Buzz Aldrin: \u201cMars is there, waiting to be reached.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And tomorrow\u2019s students will be the ones to take us there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA has set an ambitious plan to place humans on Mars in the 2030s. But can they actually do it? We spoke to NASA engineer Dr Ravi Margasahayam to find out what reaching Mars could mean for humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":5612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-5609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"About Dr Ravi Margasahayam","content":"

Growing up in Bombay, India, Dr Ravi Margashayam\u2019s interest in aircraft and exploration was kindled at age 11, when he watched the pilot protagonist of Bollywood hit, Sangam, travel the world and \u2018get the girl\u2019.<\/p>\n

Years later he decided to follow his father\u2019s footsteps and become an engineer and after completing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering in India, he travelled to the United States to complete a master and PhD in aerospace engineering.<\/p>\n

In 1979 he started at Boeing where he worked on commercial aeroplanes and helicopters, before transitioning to work on Boeing-NASA joint projects. In 1989 he became a full-time employee of NASA.<\/p>\n

Over the course of his 25-year career at NASA, Dr Margasahayam has worked on many programs including the space shuttle rocket families Atlas, Delta and Titan, and the X-33 prototype for a single-stage-to-orbit rocket plane. He has been involved in creating a new generation of launch vehicles in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, and has helped develop heavy lift launch vehicles capable of carrying large payloads (such as an entire space station) into the Earth\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

In 1999, Dr Margasahayam helped send the STARDUST spacecraft to collect comet dust from Comet Wild 2, and in 2009 was involved the Ares 1-X project, an early prototype of the Ares I launch-system that will one-day launch the Orion and its crew to Mars.<\/p>\n

With the decommission of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, Dr Margasahayam\u2019s experience led him to become the co-chair of the Ground Safety Review Panel at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. There he is responsible for ensuring the safety of the International Space Station and all the payloads sent to it.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":8624,"id":8624,"title":"Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","filename":"Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/reaching-for-the-red-planet\/ravi-cropped-3-jpg-2\/","alt":"","author":"4275","description":"","caption":"","name":"ravi-cropped-3-jpg-2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":5609,"date":"2022-07-01 06:54:35","modified":"2022-07-01 06:54:35","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":521,"height":573,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3-521x370.jpg","medium-width":521,"medium-height":370,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","medium_large-width":521,"medium_large-height":573,"large":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3-521x500.jpg","large-width":521,"large-height":500,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","1536x1536-width":521,"1536x1536-height":573,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","2048x2048-width":521,"2048x2048-height":573,"small":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3-480x240.jpg","small-width":480,"small-height":240,"xlarge":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","xlarge-width":521,"xlarge-height":573,"xxlarge":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","xxlarge-width":521,"xxlarge-height":573,"hd":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","hd-width":521,"hd-height":573,"uhd":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ravi-cropped-3.jpg","uhd-width":521,"uhd-height":573}}},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Mars-habitat-cropped.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 04:19:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5609"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=5609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}