NEW SPACE RACE WHO WILL BE THE FIRST TO REACH MARS?
In 1969 Neil Angstrom was the first human to set foot on the surface of the moon,
since then a total of 12 people have stepped on our natural satellite and new missions are
already being planned that will take the next generation of humans to the moon.
However, so far we have not yet managed to get humans to Mars,
the most earth-like planet in the solar system. And who will be the first to set foot
on the surface of the red planet? Stay until the end of this video to find out.
THE FIRST SPACE RACE In the 50s the former
Soviet Union and the United States faced off in a duel in which both wanted to prove
which of the two possessed the greatest technological advances in the world.
This happened from the Second World War, at a time when the world was still in fear
of an inevitable third world war and the scars of past wars had not yet finished closing.
To reinforce the patriotic ideal in society and provide the sense of security each nation invested
an enormous amount of money for the development of weapons and technology that would serve in war.
With a budget like never before seen both the US and the Soviet Union managed to develop better air
vehicles, submarines, destructive weapons and one of the most important, spaceships, in 1957
the Soviet Union put into orbit the artificial satellite Sputnik 1, the first of its kind, it
was a revolution of technology, a device capable of going around the whole world in a few minutes
and that could fall on any part of the earth. This raised alerts in the U.S. and they quickly
began to develop their own artificial satellites, rockets and in 1957 President John F. Kennedy
declared in front of thousands of people that in just 10 years
the nation's technology would take a human being to the moon and bring him back safe and sound.
The Soviet Union accepted this as a challenge to prove who would be the first of the two to
achieve such a feat, this is what we know as the space race and as we know today the
US was the one who achieved the goal of putting a man on the surface of the moon.
Of course, this does not mean that the US won the race, in fact the Soviet Union had
many equally important achievements such as having put the first human being into orbit,
the first human being in space, having done the first spacewalk, among many other things.
Both nations brought great feats and technologies to the space race and because of that today
we have hundreds of devices that would not have been possible without the advances of that race
for technological supremacy. THE NEW SPACE RACE
Unlike the time in which we live, in the years in which the space race was held,
this was mainly motivated by political ends since governments did not want to be behind
in anything that could be used as a weapon. Today, while we still have wars, it could be said
that in general the world is living in a time of peace, there are no risks of a third world war at
least in the coming years and nations are reaching increasingly egalitarian levels of development.
Thanks to technological advances and high levels of wealth, new players have emerged
in the aerospace industry that did not exist 50 years ago, private space agencies.
These agencies have developed the technology and budget to carry out space missions
that many decades ago only governments with their great power could carry out.
New private space agencies and government agencies have a new goal in their sights and that goal is
to go as far as it has never gone before, the new space race is no longer about seeing who gets to
the moon first, but who gets to Mars first. WHY MARS?
Mars is not the closest planet to earth, that title belongs to Venus, so if Venus is the
closest planet to earth, why not go to Venus? The reason is very simple. Venus is hell itself!
Unlike Mars which has cold temperatures, but bearable,
Venus has temperatures that exceed 400 ° C, at this temperature some metals begin to melt,
Venus is the hottest planet of all because its atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect
that does not allow the heat of the planet to escape and the gases remain
in the atmosphere causing sulfuric acid to rain on Venus instead of water and instead of rivers
of water on Venus there are rivers of lava. In short, Venus is the worst place we could go,
so next on the list is Mars. This planet has conditions very similar to the earth,
with a third of the mass of the earth on Mars the force of gravity would be a third of the Earth,
that is to say that if on earth you weigh 60 Kg, on Mars you would only weigh 20 Kg.
In addition, on Mars the days last 23 hours, very similar to the earth,
another aspect is the surface, according to the studies of the exploration probes that have been
sent to the red planet, the surface of Mars is very similar to a desert with dust and rocks.
So discarding the fact that not enough water deposits have yet been found,
nor does it have a magnetic field to protect us from solar radiation,
Mars is the only planet on which we could live at least inside
capsules that have an earth-like habitation. WHEN WILL THE FIRST HUMANS ARRIVE ON MARS?
Who will be the first person to set foot on the surface of Mars and go down in history
as Neil Angstrom did in 1969? The reality is that it is not yet known,
there are currently many astronauts who could cover with this profile, however,
the real problem is that it is not yet known when it will be the first mission to the red planet.
There are some optimistic entrepreneurs like Elon Musk who have expressed that with their technology
we would be able to send the first fleet of humans to the red planet in less than a decade,
however, according to most scientists experts in the area, those claims lack certainty.
No matter how much technology a space agency possesses, whether government or private,
the trip to Mars is not like the trip to the moon, the trips to the moon took a few days,
the trip to Mars would take months. The moon is located at 384,000 km, while Mars,
at its closest point to earth, is 59 million km this is 153 times farther than the moon,
until now a spacecraft has never been built to support such a long journey with a crew of humans.
NASA is the only space agency that has taken humans to the moon, it is the one that has more
experience in this and not even they dare to set a date for the arrival of the first humans to Mars
since they are aware that it is not such an easy mission to perform.
Unlike the trip to the moon, the trip to Mars presents endless new challenges,
the most important of them is time, trips to the moon could be made in a few days, but the
trip to Mars can last months or even years, it is estimated that taking advantage of the gaps
of approach between the earth and Mars every 26 months, the fastest spacecraft we have could reach
the red planet in a record time of 7 months. 7 months just to go and at least another 8
months to return to earth. Total travel time at least 15 months, approximately 450 days in space
under the effects of weightlessness. So far the person who has spent the most time in space is
astronaut Vande Hei who was on the International Space Station for a period of 355 days. Upon
returning to the land Vande Hei had lost a good part of his muscle mass,
his bones had decalcified and it took almost 2 years to fully recover his physical condition.
Astronauts going to Mars will be subjected to similar or even more extreme conditions,
if that is the case it will not be possible to send anyone but only those who are most likely
to survive such a long and exhausting journey. Finally there is the knowledge factor,
for now NASA is the only one that has dealt with astronauts on the
surface of another world other than earth. If an experienced space agency like NASA has
not been able to determine when they will take the first human to Mars,
it is almost impossible for a private space agency to give an accurate date. Simply put,
when will we get to Mars? The shortest and most accurate answer is that it is not yet known.
To say that it will be in less than 10 years is a bit risky, but it is not possible to know
what the technology will be like in 10 years, maybe by then we already have a more exact date,
for now we do not know. WHO WILL ARRIVE FIRST?
Now suppose that 10 years have passed and we already have the technology to
send the first crew of humans to the red planet. Will it be a private space agency like SpaceX or
will it be a government space agency like NASA? The answer is... neither.
If history has taught us anything, it's that great feats rarely happen in the same way twice.
The first time humans set foot on the moon only the most powerful nation arrived,
only men carried and they were all Caucasians. In the current era things have changed a lot
since then, nations are no longer divided and all countries trade with each other in
a huge global economy in which the actions of one nation affect all.
Today the most ambitious projects of humanity are increasingly being focused
by an international participation, an example of this is the large nuclear
fusion reactor ITER, (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor)
in France which seeks to recreate the processes that occur inside the sun to create clean energy.
Another proof of this is the International Space Station which, although it was initially built by
the United States, many nations around the world cooperated for its construction and make it what
it is today, the most expensive and impressive construction in the history of humanity,
a laboratory the size of a soccer field orbiting the earth and traveling at more than 25 km / h.
International collaborations have achieved what a single nation cannot do
and it is evident that when the efforts of all the possibilities of achieving something
are combined they increase considerably, today this is reflected in all aspects of our lives
and the world panorama embraces this system of mutual collaborations where we all win.
It is possible that in the not too distant future this will become a trend of progress and that the
mission that is responsible for taking the next humans to Mars will not be only of one nation
but a collaboration of all the nations of the world and all the space agencies that exist.
In this way we can take the best of each one to build the ship
that will take humanity to put its feet, for the first time in history, on the surface of a
planet different from the one that saw us born. This crew of astronauts would be made up of
people from all nations, brave men and women who will carry upon their men the dreams and hopes
of all humanity, while we will be watching them very closely on their journey to the stars,
accompanying them on their journey where no person has been before, on a planet that may one day
become our next home.