Manned mission to Mars by end of next decade
There will be a manned research mission to Mars by the end of the next decade, according to Stamatios “Tom” Krimigis, the pioneering researcher with wide participation in NASA’s most important space program.
In a speech at the Hellenic Parliament Foundation’s “Stars in the Park” event on the theme of life in the universe, Krimigis spoke in detail about the conditions on the red planet and how inhospitable it is for human life. In addition to manned research missions, he expressed pessimism about permanent colonization due to the solar radiation that bombards the planet.
Another element that makes colonization scenarios difficult is “the distance that spacecraft have to travel, since they have to travel for 220 days to reach Mars.”
Referring also to the issue of the colonization of Mars and the moon, University of Chicago and NASA Senior Planetary Scientist Thanasis Economou expressed doubts, saying the prevailing conditions are quite difficult and apart from the creation of infrastructure for research purposes, huge financial resources will be needed to support stable colonization options.
Economou noted that “the moon has sparked the space interest of many countries” which are initially trying unmanned flights to explore the moon. “Apart from China, which has landed a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon, India, Japan and the Emirates are the countries planning missions in the near future.”
