Packing for a journey to Mars? Knowing what to bring and what not to bring – that’s important.
If there’s something essential to human exploration that we’re not taking from Earth, how will we acquire the resources we need?
Future Mars explorers will rely on raw materials found on the red planet. This process is known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). During future missions, the materials gathered will be used for, among other things, shelters and rocket fuel for the return trip to Earth.
Right now, astronauts rely on supplies delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) from Earth. This is part of phase one of NASA’s Journey To Mars and is known as Earth Reliant. In the next phase called Proving Ground, operations will take place in the space around the moon. The next phase is Earth Independent in which humans will travel to Mars.
Where on Mars will humans land? It’s a question the agency will answer using data from a new mars orbiter. The spacecraft will take 6-9 months to get to Mars.
Right now, the agency is working on Resource Prospector. It’s a mission to go to the moon and mine another world for the first time. With a launch possibility in the early 2020s, the mission will travel to the polar region of the moon. It will excavate resources to support humans including water, oxygen and hydrogen.
Onward to Mars, what kind of machine might be used for mining? NASA is working on a new robot, called the Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) which functions by taking many small scoops of regolith, the surface material.
Onboard the ISS, research is being conducted on plant growth for food during a mission to Mars. The best environments for growth are being evaluated.
What role does trash play in all of this resourcefulness? There is a team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center developing a trash reactor to burn the waste and use the resulting elements. In experiments, seven pounds of rocket fuel were made from just 10 pounds of trash!
With many avenues of resourcefulness being studied by the agency, all of them point toward the exciting future of exploration that will lead our species into deep space.
Learn more about the Journey to Mars at NASA.gov.