Radiation and pressure: what will happen to the bodies of the first colonists of Mars

Colonization of Mars will not be possible if scientists and engineers do not figure out how to protect people from another gravity, pressure and radiation.

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Part of what can happen to people on the Red Planet is shown in the television series Expansion, writes Medium.

Elon Musk from SpaceX, we recall, hopes to deliver a man to Mars by 2026. What should you think about when preparing this mission?

Radiation and pressure

Radiation in space is a real problem, so it will be necessary to protect volunteers from it on the way back and forth.

And speaking of being on Mars, you need to figure out what to do with the air pressure. Getting oxygen to breathe is, of course, a fairly obvious problem.

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But not everything is so simple, the Red Planet lacks not only oxygen, but also pressure. It is only about 0.6% of the earth’s at sea level.

Imagine flying at high altitude about nine km, and the windows fly out – there is oxygen, but you still die because the air is too thin.

At the same time, the pressure on Mars of 0.6% is not equivalent to nine Earth kilometers, this can be compared with the pressure at an altitude of 30 km.

Long day on Mars

The Martian day is 40 minutes longer than ours. People working at NASA on the Mars Science Laboratory switch to Red Planet time.

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MSL team members doing this wear a dedicated Mars Time watch. This means that you start your day at 40 minutes later at 9:00, then at 9:40, then at 10:20, and so on.

Participants in the experiment found they could support this model. maximum three monthsand then they have to interrupt this schedule.

Cold deserts of Mars

When we think of simulating a habitat on Mars, a distant place in the desert comes to mind. For example, the Mauna Loa mountain range on the island of Hawaii. Nice, warm and sunny.

But you need to understand: Mars is actually very cold. Average surface temperature – approximately -63 C.

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In summer, in some places the temperature can reach 21 C, and this is the absolute maximum. In winter, the temperature at the poles drops to -140.

To practice living on Mars, you actually need to build a simulator of an Antarctic habitat in the middle of winter.

Solar flares and radiation

Getting to Mars exposes you to two completely different sources of radiation.

Solar flares will provide the inhabitants of the surface with a “bath” of X-rays, gamma rays and fluxes of protons and electrons.

Another source of radiation is not our Sun, but particles that come outside the solar system, mostly from elsewhere in our Galaxy.

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On our planet we are protected from it all by the earth’s magnetic field.

Even taking into account the protection developed by engineers, an astronaut, going to Mars and back, will receive such a dose of radiation that he will not be able to return again with another mission.

When are they going to fly?

The preliminary schedule from Elon Musk is as follows:

• Starship Orbital Test – November 2021;
• manned loop around the moon – 2023;
• cargo mission to Mars – 2024;
• manned flight to Mars – 2026.

As for the colony, Space X hopes it can be established in about 50-100 years. We will remind, earlier it was reported that China wants to send people to Mars as early as 2033.