How Long Does It Take To Learn How To Do Nails
This article originally appeared in Universe Today in July, 2012, but it's been updated with a related video.
The planet Mars is one of the brightest objects in the nighttime sky, hands visible with the unaided eye as a bright cherry star. Every two years or so, Mars and Earth achieve their closest indicate, called "opposition", when Mars can exist every bit close as 55,000,000 km from Earth. And every 2 years, space agencies take reward of this orbital alignment to transport spacecraft to the Blood-red Planet. How long does it take to get to Mars?
The full journey time from Earth to Mars takes between 150-300 days depending on the speed of the launch, the alignment of Globe and Mars, and the length of the journey the spacecraft takes to accomplish its target. It actually just depends on how much fuel you're willing to burn down to get there. More fuel, shorter travel time.
History of Going to Mars:
The first spacecraft e'er to make the journey from Earth to Mars was NASA's Mariner 4, which launched on November 28, 1964 and arrived at Mars July 14, 1965, successfully taking a series of 21 photographs. Mariner four's total flying fourth dimension was 228 days.
The side by side successful mission to Mars was Mariner six, which blasted off on Feb 25, 1969 and reached the planet on July 31, 1969; a flight time of only 156 days. The successful Mariner 7 only required 131 days to make the journey.
Mariner 9, the first spacecraft to successfully go into orbit around Mars launched on May xxx, 1971, and arrived Nov xiii, 1971 for a duration of 167 days. This is the aforementioned pattern that has held up for more almost 50 years of Mars exploration: approximately 150-300 days.
Here are some more examples:
- Viking i (1976) – 335 days
- Viking ii (1976) – 360 days
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006) – 210 days
- Phoenix Lander (2008) – 295 days
- Curiosity Lander (2012) – 253 days
Why Does information technology Take So Long?:
When you consider the fact that Mars is just 55 one thousand thousand km away, and the spacecraft are travelling in backlog of 20,000 km/60 minutes, y'all would await the spacecraft to make the journey in well-nigh 115 days, just it takes much longer. This is considering both Earth and Mars are orbiting around the Sun. You can't point directly at Mars and start firing your rockets, because by the time you got in that location, Mars would have already moved. Instead, spacecraft launched from World demand to exist pointed at where Mars is going to be.
The other constraint is fuel. Over again, if you had an unlimited amount of fuel, you'd betoken your spacecraft at Mars, burn down your rockets to the halfway point of the journey, then plow around and decelerate for the last half of the journey. You could cut your travel time downwardly to a fraction of the current charge per unit – just you lot would need an impossible corporeality of fuel.
How to Get to Mars with the Least Corporeality of Fuel:
The primary business of engineers is how to become a spacecraft to Mars, on the to the lowest degree amount of fuel. Robots don't really care about the hostile environment of space, so it makes sense to decrease the launch costs of the rocket as much as possible.
NASA engineers use a method of travel called a Hohmann Transfer Orbit – or a Minimum Free energy Transfer Orbit – to send a spacecraft from World to Mars with the least amount of fuel possible. The technique was kickoff proposed by Walter Hohmann who published the get-go description of the maneuver in 1925.
Instead of pointing your rocket directly at Mars, you boost the orbit of your spacecraft so that it's following a larger orbit around the Lord's day than the Globe. Somewhen that orbit will intersect the orbit of Mars – at the exact moment that Mars is at that place too.
If you need to launch with less fuel, you just take longer to raise your orbit, and increase the journey to Mars.
Other Ideas to Decrease the Travel Fourth dimension to Mars:
Although it requires some patience to await for a spacecraft to travel 250 days to attain Mars, nosotros might want a completely different propulsion method if nosotros're sending humans. Infinite is a hostile identify, and the radiation of interplanetary space might pose a longterm health gamble to man astronauts. The background cosmic rays inflict a constant barrage of cancer-inducing radiations, just there's a bigger risk of massive solar storms, which could impale unprotected astronauts in a few hours. If you can subtract the travel time, you reduce the corporeality of time astronauts are getting pelted with radiation, and minimize the amount of supplies they demand to carry for a return journey.
Go Nuclear:
One idea is nuclear rockets, which rut upwards a working fluid – similar hydrogen – to intense temperatures in a nuclear reactor, then boom information technology out a rocket nozzle at loftier velocities to create thrust. Because nuclear fuels are far more free energy dense than chemical rockets, you could get a college thrust velocity with less fuel. It's proposed that a nuclear rocket could decrease the travel time downwards to about 7 months
Go Magnetic:
Another proposal is a engineering science called the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (or VASIMR). This is an electromagnetic thruster which uses radio waves to ionize and heat a propellant. This creates an ionized gas called plasma which can be magnetically thrust out the back of the spacecraft at high velocities. Former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz is pioneering the development of this engineering science, and a prototype is expected to be installed on the International Infinite Station to help information technology maintain its altitude in a higher place World. In a mission to Mars, a VASIMR rocket could reduce the travel time downwardly to five months.
Go Antimatter:
Perchance one of the most extreme proposals would be to utilize an antimatter rocket. Created in particle accelerators, antimatter is the most dense fuel yous could perhaps use. When atoms of matter meet atoms of antimatter, they transform into pure energy, as predicted by Albert Einstein'south famous equation: E = mcii. But 10 milligrams of antimatter would be needed to propel a human mission to Mars in only 45 days. But then, producing even that minuscule amount of antimatter would cost about $250 one thousand thousand.
Future Missions to Mars:
Fifty-fifty though some incredible technologies accept been proposed to shorten the travel time to Mars, engineers volition be using the tried and true methods of following minimum energy transfer orbits using chemic rockets. NASA's MAVEN mission volition launch in 2013 using this technique, besides ESA's ExoMars missions. It might exist a few decades before other methods get mutual techniques.
Research further:
Information about Interplanetary Orbits – NASA
7 Minutes of Terror – The Challenge of Landing at Mars
NASA Proposal for a nuclear rocket engine
Hohmann Transfer Orbits – Iowa State University
Minimum Transfers and Interplanetary Orbits
New and Improved Antimatter Space Ship for Mars Missions – NASA
Astronomy Cast Episode 84: Getting Around the Solar Organization
Related Stories from Universe Today:
Travel to Mars in Just 39 Days
A One Way, One Person Mission to Mars
Could a Human Mission to Mars be Funded Commercially?
How Volition MSL Navigate to Mars? Very Carefully
A Cheap Solution to Getting to Mars?
Why have and then many missions to Mars failed?
This commodity originally appeared in Universe Today in July, 2012, but it'due south been updated with a related video.
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Source: https://www.universetoday.com/14841/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars/
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