Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Can the U.S. Really Get Astronauts to Mars by 2030?

Chang, Kenneth, and Daniel Victor. "Can the U.S. Really Get Astronauts to Mars by 2030?" New York Times. N.p., 11 Oct. 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/science/president-obama-nasa-mars.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront  

In 2010, President Obama set a goal that America should get to Mars by the 2030's, and on Tuesday, he called again for astronauts to get to Mars.  NASA is working hard to execute this mission.  They gave contracts in August to six companies to develop habitats that could sustain humans on space missions.  The White house advisor and the NASA administrator are also allowing private companies to give modules ideas to the International Space Station.  Work in the space station will move into the area of space in between Earth and the moon in the next decade.  Although NASA is moving into the next stage of getting astronauts to Mars, there are still challenges.  Many wonder if travel to Mars is possible.  The mission is possible, although it would be economically costly, take a lot of time, and the astronauts would be subject to risks including radiation.  There have been plans to get to Mars over recent years, but the main challenges have been political and financial.  One example is in 1989 when President George Bush planned to send Americans to the moon then to Mars.  The plan did not work out because according to NASA, the mission would cost half a trillion dollars and take two or three decades.  Another common question is will SpaceX get there first.  Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, said the Interplanetary Transport System would get people to Mars by 2024.  Although possible for SpaceX to get there soon, it is still unclear how the company will pay for it.  In addition, there are certain abilities and technologies that the spacecraft needs to prove before SpaceX can travel to Mars.  As of right now, the plan in the U.S. is to have the first launch of the Space Launch System without crew be in 2018.  The second launch with crew is estimated for over three years later.  Because cost is one of the main issues, NASA is coming up with ways to find the funding for the mission.  One way to get astronauts to Mars by 2030 is to stop operating the International Space Station in 2024.  It costs NASA $3 billion to $4 billion a year and would allow NASA to use the money for building the spacecraft for the mission.  Engineers plan to send a spacecraft around Mars by 2028, and according to Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, astronauts should orbit Mars in the 2030's and land in the 2040's.
The discussion in this article is very important.  Landing on the moon was a huge accomplishment of the U.S. and opened up many opportunities of exploring and learning about the solar system.  Since then, many people have wondered if a mission to Mars would even be possible, and now agencies in the world are well on their way of carrying out the mission.  NASA is working hard to get the money to make the mission to Mars possible.  If the U.S. is able to pull off a mission to Mars, it will increase the world's resources for learning about Space.
This was a very interesting article to read.  The author did a good job of explaining NASA's progress on the mission to Mars as well as their future plans.  The article also clearly addressed the main challenges in the mission: financial and political rather than technical.  I also liked how the author talked about common questions asked about the mission.  Examples include how has NASA been preparing and will SpaceX get there before the U.S.  The author also pointed out ways in which NASA is going to deal with the financial issue.  One area of weakness is the author was unclear when explaining why NASA was going to be able to orbit Mars in the 2030's but land on Mars in the 2040's.  The author could have explained why there was such a time gap.  The article could have also gone into an estimate of how long it would take to get to and from Mars.  Overall, this article was very clear and well done.  I learned a lot about NASA's plans for the U.S. mission to mars.  
    

1 comment:

  1. Chang, Kenneth, and Daniel Victor. "Can the U.S. Really Get Astronauts to Mars by 2030?" New York Times. N.p., 11 Oct. 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/science/president-obama-nasa-mars.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

    Emily Spitz did an excellent job of reviewing the article, “Can the U.S. Really Get Astronauts to Mars by 2030?” by Kenneth Chang and Daniel Victor. She did a good job of explaining that the main hindrances of the mission to Mars by NASA are financial and political. It thought that it was interesting that the technical challenges of the process were less of an issue when compared to the cost of the mission and the political side, so it was important that she pointed that out. Emily did an amazing job of highlighting the importance of the mission to Mars by discussing how it has the potential to increase our knowledge of the solar system. She also asked important questions concerning the details of the mission that were not answered by the authors in the article.
    While she did write a thorough and thought-provoking response to the New York Times published article, there are definitely areas that could be improved. I thought that her summary was repetitive and too long for such a short original article. Her extremely long summary passage dwarfed the sizes of her following two paragraphs which made them seem overall less significant. In the middle of her first paragraph she introduced the “common question” of whether SpaceX will reach Mars before NASA without explaining what SpaceX is. This makes for a confusing read for someone who is unfamiliar with the topic.
    As a result of reading Emily’s current event review, I have learned that America and NASA have a goal of landing astronauts on Mars. I think that it is a very noble and interesting mission, but I wonder if the energy and money is better spent improving conditions on Earth.

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