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Let's Go To Mars! - Bath 1 May 2018: Summary and Comments

This presentation by Jerry Stone had been billed as suitable for children and the well-filled auditorium with many young faces showed that that advertising can work!

 

Jerry told us how his own interest in space exploration had begun as a child, indeed that was when he first starting making presentations on the subject. He went on to describe his clandestine viewing of the first lunar landing and his ongoing participation in the various outreach and engagement programmes of the various space projects over the years.

 

Mars, we were told, is the fourth planet from the Sun, and approximately half the diameter of Earth. Its surface gravity is only 38% of Earth's but it rotates at about the same rate, having a day of 24 hours 40 minutes. The orbit of Mars is more elliptical than Earth's and that and the fact that it takes just over two years to orbit the Sun means that the distance between these planets varies greatly and consequently a mission to Mars needs to be carefully planned. The surface of Mars would be very hostile to humans with temperatures ranging from -87 Cº to -5 Cº and with a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere (0.60 kPa, 0.6% of Earth's). Mars does have the tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, about three times the height of Everest.

 

Perhaps to encourage perseverance we were told that Asaph Hall discovered the moons, Demios and Phobos, after his wife, Angeline, had urged him to continue his search. The largest crater on Phobos was named Stickney, her maiden name. The consequences of mistranslation were also highlighted as Giovanni Schiaparelli's discovery of markings on Mars, described as canali (channels), became canals in English, with the implication of them being man-made. This, of course, led to the H.G. Wells story, The War Of The Worlds and no end of films, lovingly illustrated in the presentation. A further lesson, (for children?), was the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 as a result of a errors in converting units of measurement. Of the sixteen USA missions to Mars seven had ended in failure.

 

Several successful missions were described, that of Viking 1 being of note because it might have discovered evidence of life. Unfortunately another experiment on the same mission contradicted that result. The discovery of bacteria-like forms within meteorite ALH84001, suspected to be  Martian in origin, in Antarctica in 1984 re-ignited speculation that the positive result from Viking might have been correct.

 

The USA isn't alone in sending missions to Mars and some of the European efforts, including the UK-designed Beagle, were described. India and China are also getting more involved in space exploration and are expected to carry out Mars missions too.

 

Is it possible to carry out a manned-mission to Mars? The first proposal by NASA was costed at $450 billion – and promptly rejected. There were three methods that have been considered for reaching Mars, using the Moon as a base, using the International Space Station as a staging point or going there directly. Our speaker was of the opinion that this last was the best way. The key to this was to reduce the amount of fuel carried by manufacturing fuel for the return trip on Mars or using the Sabre engine technology to make a space vehicle that could use atmospheric air where possible during the Earth ascent, switching to rocket power when it wasn't. A scheme was described, ('Mars Direct') in which a 'fuel factory' would be sent to Mars first. A manned flight would follow some two years later, accompanied by a second 'fuel factory' flight. In this way a succession of manned-missions could take place, at the same time providing a fall-back fuel reserve should things go wrong. Fuel could be produced using the Sabatier reaction, producing methane from atmospheric CO2 and hydrogen either transported from Earth or electrolysed from water on Mars.

 

Would it be possible to live on Mars? Well there would need to be radiation shielding and a means to provide food. Solar power would have to provide most of the energy. Trials of simulated Martian living were being carried out on Earth at various Martian Analogue Research Stations, F-MARS and D-MARS to be followed by Euro-MARS in Iceland.

 

The talk closed by speculating that children of today could well be of an age to take part in a Mars mission so they were urged to study hard and take a degree in a STEM, (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), subject, as there would be plenty of opportunities!
 

 




Our presenter had clearly retained his fascination with space from his childhood days and sought to impart that to a new generation. I wonder how likely that is, as he said himself, the Lunar landing was a first that can never be repeated. I wonder too if attitudes have changed. Not only were the late 'sixties' the time of space travel they were the days of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and the rise of environmentalism. Once we said “To boldly go where no man has gone before!” now we are made to feel guilty about despoiling nature and colonialism. Will there be public acceptance of a manned-mission?

 

Perhaps I am being too negative? Speculative or not this was certainly an entertaining presentation that might well have fired-up a few youngsters to take up a 'space' career! 



Links

 
The Great British Blast Off – Jerry Stone's website
Angeline Hall

 "The chance of finding a satellite appeared to be very slight, so that I might have abandoned the search had it not been for the encouragement of my wife." (However Mr. Hall drew the line when Mrs. Hall demanded a man's wage while she assisted her husband in his computations, when he refused her, she refused to continue that work.)
H.G. Wells War Of The Worlds – The first 'Martian' story?
Mars – Basic facts
Sabatier reaction – A possible fuel for Mars (An overall unit conversion rate expected from the optimized system is one tonne of propellant per 17 MWh energy input)
ExoMars – Astrobiology project to search for life on Mars
Mars Direct – The Mars Society's proposal to live on Mars
SABRE – Jet/Rocket engine
 Euro-MARS – European Martian Analogue Research Station
The tyranny of the rocket equation – Video of why rocketry is hard
Ditto – but in words
  • A very good synopsis of the lecture. The lecture was of interest to all and provked some discussion afterwards.