[♪ INTRO]
Oh, you’re right, Squeaks, the Red Planet really does look brown in these pictures.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Oh! Hey everyone, Squeaks and I are learning about the planet Mars.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yes, it does have a lot of cool features, like the biggest volcano in the Solar System.
And blue sunsets!
I’d love to go see them.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Whoa!
Slow down, Squeaks.
It sure would be exciting to send people to Mars,
but it’s not as simple as hopping aboard a rocket ship.
Scientists and engineers have to plan everything out very, very carefully!
For instance, you can’t launch your spaceship whenever you want.
[Squeaks squeaks]
I know.
See, Mars and Earth are both orbiting, or circling around, the Sun.
But Mars orbits farther away from our Sun than Earth does,
and it moves more slowly.
This means they aren’t always the same distance from each other.
Sometimes they’re super close to one another,
and sometimes they’re on opposite sides of the Sun!
So you have to wait for the right time when the two planets are in the perfect spots
so that a rocket can leave Earth, travel through space,
and reach Mars…all while everything is still moving!
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yeah, you’re right.
It is complicated.
But scientists can do the math to figure out exactly when it’s okay
to launch a rocket to Mars.
These special times are called launch windows.
And because Earth and Mars keep changing where they are,
these launch windows only happen every 26 months or so!
That’s a little over two years.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Oh! If a rocket misses its launch window, the team launching the rocket
usually has to wait until the next one, and that can take a long time!
[Squeaks squeaks]
Oh! That’s a great question, Squeaks.
You could launch at another time.
But it would take a lot more fuel.
That would make the rocket heavier, and harder to launch.
And getting to Mars takes a long time, too!
A trip to Mars would probably take about seven to nine months!
It’s a long time, but the space between planets is really big.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yeah, I would want to go outside the spaceship and stretch at some point, too.
But, it’s not safe to do that.
Once you’re in space, it’s a dangerous trip!
Just like sailors on Earth have to deal with storms,
astronauts traveling to Mars have to watch out for space weather.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yeah!
Space has weather too!
But it isn’t the same as our weather on Earth.
Most space weather in our Solar System comes from our Sun.
Every day, it spits out lots of teeny tiny particles that astronomers call the solar wind.
And sometimes the Sun does its own kind of burp,
sending a giant burst of these particles out into space all at once.
That can create a kind of solar storm.
So, it can be dangerous for an astronaut to be hit by space weather
because it can make them sick.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Don’t worry, Squeaks!
Buddy!
We’re safe from space weather down here on Earth,
because our planet can protect us.
[Squeaks squeaks]
But ships that go into space, need to be built with special materials
that can protect the astronauts inside.
Can you think of anything that humans use
to protect themselves from tiny particles?
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yes! That’s really smart, Squeaks, you have to wear a lead apron
when you get an X-ray at the dentist.
Lead is really good at blocking harmful particles,
like particles from the Sun’s solar wind, but it’s also really heavy.
When you’re making a spaceship,
you want to use materials that are as light as possible.
Rockets can’t be heavy or they would need even more fuel to get off the ground.
So we can’t just wrap our spaceship in a big lead apron.
The ship could have a small protected room inside that astronauts could stay in
whenever the space weather got really bad.
But they would need scientists back on Earth to predict when a big storm is coming,
and warn them ahead of time.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yeah! And after all that, there’s still one more challenge to face: landing the ship!
Scientists and engineers have experimented with lots of different ways to land.
When a ship arrives at Mars’ atmosphere, or air, it'll be going very fast.
It’ll be going so fast, the air can’t move out of the way.
The air gets smushed and it gets really, really hot…hot enough to melt metal!
So to protect the landing spaceship,
it needs to have a special layer called a heat shield.
Falling through the air this way will slow it down a lot.
But after the heat shield finishes its job,
the ship needs to find another way to slow down.
Luckily, we’ve safely landed a bunch of robots on Mars in the past
and learned a lot from those missions.
[Squeaks squeaks]
So, engineers have used lots of ways to land their robots over the years.
My favorite was giant, bouncy airbags!
[Squeaks squeaks]
You’re right, that might be a little too rough for human beings!
So maybe we could use a combination of some other, more gentle methods,
like starting with a really big parachute and ending with small rockets
that let part of the craft hover while a sky crane lowers the spacecraft to the ground.
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yep! Then we’ll be on the ground, and we can start exploring!
[Squeaks squeaks]
Yeah, getting to Mars won’t be easy!
But we can learn so much from trying.
Engineers and scientists are hard at work every day
to find out the best way to get humans safely to Mars.
There are a lot of challenges they’ll have to solve,
but it’ll all be worth it when the first astronauts get to hop around on another planet!
Thanks to our partner, the Museum of Science,
for collaborating with us on this episode of SciShow Kids.
You may not be able to visit Mars just yet,
but you can jet over to the Museum of Science YouTube channel
to learn more about everything from the outer reaches of space
to the inner workings of life science.
Happy exploring!
[♪ OUTRO]