Why has no Human Been Sent To Mars?

I Just want to know what is the distance between Earth and Mars and is it to far to send a human in a shuttle, will he/she ever reach there without dying on the way?,

If it is possible why have they not done it and could someone tell me how long it would possible take weither it is possible or not.

Plus couldnt we do the same thing but go to Venus aswell? since Earth is between Venus and Mars?


Thank you

Mars is 1 year away from earth, and 1 year back. The cost would be too much. Later on men will be sent to mars. Venus is too hot to be able to explore it with our technology so far.

As previously stated the costs. They would be huge. Another thing preventing us is how well the human body reacts in space for long periods of time. Bones and muscles get substantially weaker the longer they are in zero gravity. I know there's more factors but this is the only thing of the top of my head.

This is currently the best bet for getting us to Mars IMO:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Depending on how close Mars is to Earth at the time of launch. It can take 6 months to a year to get there. We cannot go to Mars right now because there is no ship to take us there. The shuttle is for low Earth orbit only.

Venus is closer i believe, but we wouldn't want to go there. It's a much more hostile environment than Mars. The atmoshperic pressure is equivilant to 90 Earth atmospheres. (about the same as the pressure at a depth of 1 km in Earth's oceans). The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and there are many layers of clouds that consist of sulfuric acid. With that thick atmoshpere it creates a green house effect that raises the temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus is actually hotter than Mercury even though it's further away from the Sun. And to top that off, Venus has a very slow rotation. One day on Venus is like 243 Earth days.

So yeah I don't think anyone wants to go to Venus any time soon and we really can't send manned missions to Mars at this time either.

well i understand their are questions about how man will react to the one year long trip to mars, but what about when we get there (if we did go). would the space suits we have now be able to protect them from the pressure and all the other dangers of mars?

and another thing is the amount of oxygen needed would be immense. think about how much oxygen you breath in a year. multiply that by 2 (1 year to mars, 1 year back) and then multiply that by 4 or more (i'm guessing NASA would never send one man alone to Mars) and thats only enough oxygen for the trip. what about the oxygen you would need while you're on mars. It is a lot of oxygen, almost too much, unless they think of sum way to recycle the same oxygen, like a filter or sumthin. (maybe they already hav one of those but i'm just too slow on the uptake)

Acually the "norm" for a trip to mars is around 7 months.

On the International space station they recycle oxygen.

and the suits the use now would need a few improvments, make them tougher and more rugged and put soles on the bottom of the boots.

As said the suttle couldn't do it, but you wouldn't want to go 7 months in that thing anyway.

As for bone and muscle loss, it can be slowed if you exersize while in space regularly.

A suitable craft to take humans to Mars will probably have to be built in orbit or on the moon anyway due to the size that will be required and the fact that it takes a buttload of power that can't be wasted just to climb out of earth's gravity well. The biggest problem is that you have to carry fuel and a lot of it for the return trip back, not to mention all the equipment you have to carry if you want to do anything but look once you get there. It's a complicated mission with many different factors. We're still a few steps away from seriously undertaking a mission to mars.

We need to establish a base on the moon and get reliable travel to and from there figured out and safe.

Without massive public works projects the only way we're getting to Mars is if there's money to be found. But yes, it is possible to get to Mars.

Originally posted by VirusClock
Mars is 1 year away from earth, and 1 year back. The cost would be too much. Later on men will be sent to mars. Venus is too hot to be able to explore it with our technology so far.

zactly. we dont have the technology to do it right now, or the money for that matter, itll happn dont worry.

Ambient Sound
A suitable craft to take humans to Mars will probably have to be built in orbit or on the moon anyway due to the size that will be required and the fact that it takes a buttload of power that can't be wasted just to climb out of earth's gravity well. The biggest problem is that you have to carry fuel and a lot of it for the return trip back, not to mention all the equipment you have to carry if you want to do anything but look once you get there. It's a complicated mission with many different factors. We're still a few steps away from seriously undertaking a mission to mars.

The moon wont have a infastructure capable of building and lauching rockets.

Its far more likely that they will be launched from good ole' Cape Canaveral.
Today's newest and best Rockets like the Lockheed Atlas 5 heavy or Boeing Delta 4 heavy can still only lift 1/6 of what the huge apollo rocket could lift into space. But with some modifications they could be able to do 1/2 of the apollo rocket.

So Nasa will either use those or spend alot more and develop there own behemoth.

The first rocket to mars would more then likely be a NO HUMAN one, just supplies like food, water, scientific equiptment, a power plant (probably solar), and ect. The next one would be them with thier home, and seeds and hope to grow a green house there, which will give them some oxygen and food, but at the expense of water, hopefully the find water or ice before the send humans, that would help out alot.

They might not need to bring the fuel for a ride back with them, hopefully mars will have the right minerials to make the propellant there.

A thing I know will be used is several inflatable habitat, for storing things and for the green house and science experiments.

Here's 2 pics of a rocket, with there home on the top, that might be there ticket to Mars.

Nah, you are not thinking on a big enough scale. We're not talking about sending a couple of people in a capsule the size of the Apollo craft. We're talking a 2+ year mission. You almost have to take a semi self sustaning enviornment with you and enough people and equipment to do something useful while they are there. Nothing we have now, or even have the technology to build now would do the job the way it needs to be done especially if you try to launch it from earth. That is wasteful in the extreme.

Now if you want to send one person there to pick up a rock or two and come back, we might could do it, but what would be the point?

There is no point in sending humans to Mars.

Originally posted by Aelita
There is no point in sending humans to Mars.

I disagree 100%. The point is that humans cannot stay on earth forever and hope to survive. Eventually we will be impacted by a large comet or asteroid that will kill us all. If not that then Nuclear war may do us in.

The point is simple- If humans live on many different worlds the destruction of one is not neccesarilly the end of the human race.

Originally posted by BlackJackal

Originally posted by Aelita
There is no point in sending humans to Mars.

I disagree 100%. The point is that humans cannot stay on earth forever and hope to survive. Eventually we will be impacted by a large comet or asteroid that will kill us all. If not that then Nuclear war may do us in.

The point is simple- If humans live on many different worlds the destruction of one is not neccesarilly the end of the human race.

Agreed. As the saying goes, # HAPPENS!

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
We need to establish a base on the moon and get reliable travel to and from there figured out and safe.

I think that's a very good idea, then we can stage all of our launches from the moon base, like it can become the next Houston.

if we did colonize mars then eventualy the people who lived there would not be able to return to earth as they would adapt to the lower gravity.

You would be dealing with a new speices altoghther if generations of people lived there & evovled to adapt to the lighter gravity they would become these long stick figure people

Unless we sent a few people with a 1 way ticket. They can still communicate on their findings, but once they can no longer sustain themselves on the planet, they take a little pill and dig their own gravesite.

I imagine there would be many volunteers for this kind of mission. I personally would love the experience. I wouldn't fear this type of death.

We should not send anyone to Mars until we sort out disease and terrorism and the like.

Originally posted by Aelita
We should not send anyone to Mars until we sort out disease and terrorism and the like.

There has always been War, Famine, disease, and terrorism and there always will be. We cannot just sit here on this blue marble and wait for it all to go away before we attempt to save the human race.

BTW, most of what we learned about the greenhouse effect came from our studies on the atomosphere of Mars. Who knows what else we may be doing to our planet that we are not aware of.

Bottom line is that Space Exploration is a neccessity not an expendable budget line item.