NASA plans to send humans to Mars within just 15 years, but to reach this next frontier of space exploration, experts must discover new technology and cutting-edge science that protects astronauts from the Red Planet's deadliest killers.
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LearningTranscript
00:00NASA has set its sights on Mars.
00:09Its goal is to send humans to the red planet in the next 20 years.
00:15Looking up at Mars in the sky, I really do feel like I'm looking at a place that someday there will be people walking around on it.
00:22It feels so much like Earth in so many ways.
00:26And it's a place that really captures my imagination as a result.
00:31It's the most Earth-like environment we see in our solar system, so we're not going to leave it alone.
00:36We're going to try to do this.
00:39But conquering our planetary neighbor is a tougher challenge than we ever thought possible.
00:45It's an isolated environment where a million things can go wrong, where there's absolutely no hope of rescue.
00:54There are so many hurdles to overcome for human exploration of Mars, and it makes it quite difficult.
00:59Sure, we can get there, but are we going to be in one piece?
01:03Sometimes it feels like Mars is designed to keep us away.
01:07Are we doomed to fail in this endeavor?
01:10The red planet, Earth's neighbor, and the destination of NASA's most ambitious mission to date.
01:23But this expedition will be harder than we ever thought possible.
01:40It hurts to think of how hard it is.
01:44It's the farthest a human being has ever been from the Earth.
01:47We've got to take every precaution.
01:49As NASA's astronauts arrive at Mars, they'll face a huge obstacle.
01:55Landing on the planet is a daunting task.
01:59In the past, Mars hasn't always rolled out the welcome mat.
02:06Mars is kind of like a graveyard for spacecraft.
02:10It's actually really hard to send something from Earth and land it on Mars.
02:15This is how the European Space Agency hoped its $250 million Schiaparelli lander would touch down in 2016.
02:27But the lander's systems got it wrong.
02:31The parachute detached early, sending the craft into freefall for 33 seconds.
02:40Schiaparelli smashed into the surface at 335 miles an hour, leaving a deep black scar on the Martian landscape.
02:51It turns out that Mars is actually a particularly difficult planet to land on.
02:55Even humanity's most brilliant engineers, we've got about a 50% success rate when it comes to landing on Mars.
03:02The red planet is littered with dead spacecraft that didn't stick the landing.
03:10And for NASA's first crew descent to Mars, the space agency must learn from these mistakes.
03:17But as the crew hurtles toward the surface, they're battling the same problem as all the landers that failed before.
03:29The Martian atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth's, so it can't provide the drag needed to slow a spacecraft down.
03:36So it's not like the Earth where you can have these big giant parachutes that gently glide you down to the surface.
03:44You can use some of the air, but it's hard.
03:51The red planet's thin atmosphere is a problem that's been billions of years in the making.
03:59Mars doesn't have a large atmosphere because it's constantly being peeled away due to the lack of protection of a magnetic field.
04:07The solar wind can strip away an atmosphere.
04:14On Earth, a liquid metal core creates a magnetic field which shields the planet and helps maintain the atmosphere.
04:22Mars is different.
04:294.5 billion years ago, Mars and Earth formed from dust and gas in space.
04:39Mars forms where building materials were scarce.
04:43Its growth was stunted.
04:45So Mars is much smaller than the Earth.
04:49It's a factor of 10 smaller than the Earth.
04:51And that factor of 10 in mass is important.
04:54All of that extra mass allows the inside of the Earth to stay warm and to have a core that's rotating, which generates a magnetic field.
05:03Four billion years ago, the churning heart of Mars started to cool and solidify.
05:10And with no hot core, there's no magnetic field being generated.
05:16All of the high velocity charged particles coming from the sun pick away at the atmosphere and slowly tear it away.
05:25We know it's losing atmosphere every second due to the solar wind.
05:32So, you know, bye-bye atmosphere.
05:44With little Martian atmosphere to work with, NASA had to be creative to get its crewless landers to the Martian surface.
05:55In 2012, the revolutionary sky crane landed the Curiosity rover using parachutes and retro rockets.
06:08Previous missions have used both a parachute and something else, like a bouncy ball inflated around the spacecraft.
06:15I don't think a human crew is going to be too pleased if they're going to be bouncing onto the surface in an airbag rolling to a stop, right?
06:28To land people on Mars, NASA will need some new tricks.
06:35The 2020 rover will overcome the challenge with the advanced supersonic parachute inflation research experiment, Aspire.
06:47It will rapidly slow down the craft with the force of an airplane jet engine.
06:53This is fine for the rover. It's actually going to work no problem. But it's not going to work for people.
07:02A human lander will weigh far more than the 2,300-pound rover.
07:07Not even supersonic parachutes could land a crew safely on Mars.
07:15NASA will need a new plan.
07:18One idea is to use the thin Martian atmosphere in a unique way.
07:24There's an idea of coming in really fast, getting to the thick part of the atmosphere,
07:28and then going horizontal to the ground and gliding and losing your momentum that way.
07:37As the astronauts descend, they tilt the nose of the lander towards the Martian surface,
07:44aiming for the thickest part of the atmosphere close to the ground.
07:48Then, they pull up at the last second, using friction from the atmosphere to slow the craft.
07:55Descent engines switch on for the final touchdown.
08:00Is this a crazy idea? I mean, yeah, it's a little bit weird.
08:12I don't know if we'd really think about it, doing something like this.
08:15But, I mean, you've got to think outside the box sometimes.
08:18Right now, NASA's plans for landing a craft on Mars are still on the drawing board.
08:23But, even if they can get astronauts onto the surface, the thin atmosphere isn't done with them yet.
08:32It causes swirling dust storms that cover the planet's entire surface.
08:38Mars doesn't just have dust devils. It has dust hell.
08:42And these towering clouds have killed before.
08:53If NASA's astronauts arrive on Mars as planned in 2035, the settlers will find one of the red planet's biggest challenges is its dust.
09:17It's sticky. Basically, light from the sun can give this stuff a static charge.
09:22And then it clings to stuff.
09:24So, it's not just a matter of, like, you know, standing on a doormat outside your space habitat and shaking yourself off.
09:31It's going to get in your space suit. It's going to coat your visor. It's going to cover your solar panels.
09:36If you get it in your lungs, it's not a good thing.
09:39We have to figure out how to clear this stuff out.
09:43300 feet. Minus 11.
09:47Through the 60s and 70s...
09:49There you go.
09:50Apollo astronauts walked on the moon.
09:54When they returned to their landing module, they brought moon dust back with them.
10:01The lunar dust clogged seals, caused equipment to overheat, and resulted in false instrument readings.
10:08It even made the astronauts sick.
10:09You don't want to be breathing in fine, dusty material. By itself, you can get things like silicosis. It's almost basically a lung cancer that you can get just from breathing in the dust itself. You don't want to do that.
10:22The red planet is covered in sticky dust, and new research suggests it all came from one place.
10:31The Medusa Fossey Formation.
10:32When the 600-mile-long volcanic deposit formed three billion years ago, it was around half the size of the United States.
10:45But the Martian winds have eroded this structure and spread the dust across the entire planet.
10:56When the wind whips up this dust, it can have disastrous consequences.
11:01The real problem is just that all these fine particles get lofted into the atmosphere, and it takes a really long time for them to settle back out.
11:11And what the dust does is it just gets up in the sky and it sits there, and sits there, and sits there.
11:16As more material gets lifted into the atmosphere, it forms huge dust storms.
11:24The storms are so large, they block out the sunlight and cool the Martian surface, creating a temperature difference between the ground and atmosphere that causes winds to increase and the storms to grow.
11:40And NASA's Opportunity rover knows firsthand the dangers of being trapped in one.
11:50Opportunity was a NASA rover sent to Mars to hunt for signs of past water on the surface and potentially signs of past life.
12:02This is a rover that we really worked with so long, knew so well, and who had come up with so many amazing new results from Mars.
12:13June 2018, Opportunity was 15 years into its mission.
12:19When giant clouds of dust appeared on the horizon, NASA could only watch as the storm grew and grew.
12:29Once this dust storm coated the entire planet, it blocked the sun, and the sun was the source of Opportunity's power.
12:40Opportunity works using solar panels, and so it gradually got less and less and less electricity.
12:46For Opportunity, there was no escape.
12:49Lost in the darkness, Opportunity's power reserves slowly ran dry.
12:56The rover fell silent.
13:00We thought, well, maybe once the dust storm clears up, the panels can, you know, fire up again and we can get it back, but it just never woke up.
13:10If NASA's astronauts do make it to Mars, the storms could damage more than the crew's power supply.
13:17When the storms begin to blow, they crackle with electricity.
13:26Just like you can create a static charge by rubbing your foot on the carpet or a balloon on your hair, this happens at large scale in these dust storms on Mars.
13:35The sand grains rub up against each other, and that creates the static charge.
13:41So you get these electrical flows that occur.
13:44Here on Earth, we see this in volcanic eruptions as the dust, the ash burbling out of one of these huge eruptions.
13:51You'll see lightning discharges in those volcanic plumes from the same charge transfer.
13:56If you're in a place with a lot of electrostatic discharge, that means sparks are going to fly, which is really terrible for operating instruments.
14:06To survive on Mars, the settlers are going to need a protective shelter.
14:11The key word to living on Mars is protection, protection from the cold, protection from the lack of atmosphere, protection from the radiation from space.
14:25NASA could build shelters, but Martian history offers them a shortcut.
14:32Millions of years ago, the planet's volcanoes erupted huge amounts of lava.
14:41But the silver lining is that as the lava was flowing away, it did that through underground tubes.
14:49And then as the lava evacuated away, it left behind empty caverns, just like this really big lava tube that we're standing in right now.
14:56Martian gravity is a third as strong as Earth's, thanks to the red planet's lower mass.
15:02So when Martian lava flows underground, it meets less resistance and can carve out monstrous cave systems.
15:12Natural astronaut shelters, hidden away from the dust storms.
15:17If you actually then seal them, you can fill them with air, you've got a great place to live.
15:22These tunnels are ready-made for people to move into. We already have the keys.
15:29But a lava tube may not be everyone's idea of home sweet home.
15:35Because they're a natural feature, you can't pick and choose where they are. You have to go to where they already exist.
15:42Building their own shelters gives the astronauts more choices.
15:50And they can be built by robots before the settlers even arrive.
15:56We could even send 3D printers.
16:00I'm talking about something that actually uses the rock there and makes something like concrete.
16:05And it could build structures for us to live in.
16:07Even with shelters, the settlers will still need to eat, breathe and drink.
16:14But there is no food, no breathable oxygen and no liquid water on Mars.
16:20So even though Mars is the closest friendly environment to life that there is to the Earth, it's really not all that friendly.
16:27Without easy access to the essentials of life, will settling on Mars be possible?
16:37Humans have evolved to life on Earth.
16:54We have oxygen to breathe, water to drink and food to eat.
16:59Everything we need to survive.
17:01Compared to Earth, life on Mars is a recipe for disaster.
17:10If you look at it as a human being who wants to live there, yeah, this is an alien world that's going to try to kill you at every step.
17:17It's far away. It's cold. There are just so many reasons why we really wouldn't be happy campers on Mars.
17:24So why on Earth are we talking about sending people there?
17:28Well, the next closest planet, Venus, it's way worse.
17:32Its surface is super hot. It's got horrible chemicals in the atmosphere.
17:36So in comparison, Mars looks like a great, great place to visit.
17:39It's close. It's relatively Earth-like. And although there are many challenges, they're challenges that we could overcome.
17:47To settle on Mars, NASA's astronauts need a few essentials.
17:52If we want to live there, short-term or long-term, you know, what do you need physically?
17:59Well, you need air. You need water. You need food.
18:03Those are all things that we can bring with us.
18:06But it's a lot easier if they exist there on Mars.
18:12The settlers will need to grow their own food.
18:15But the Martian ground is poisonous.
18:17Mars' dust looks really benign. It looks kind of like dust you would find in southern Utah.
18:23But it turns out it contains a lot of something called perchlorates.
18:27And these materials are really toxic to human life.
18:32Perchlorates are chemicals formed by electricity produced in Martian dust storms.
18:38And they make up about 1% of the Martian soil.
18:42Which doesn't sound like much, but this could be a significant problem for any humans living on the surface of the red planet.
18:51Food grown in the Martian dirt will absorb the perchlorates, posing a health hazard for the astronauts.
18:59But that's not all.
19:02Direct exposure to the toxic soil will make astronauts very sick.
19:07One of the effects that perchlorates have biologically in our bodies is to sort of mess with and alter the function of our thyroid glands.
19:19Astronauts would get rashes and feel nauseous.
19:23Extended exposure to the dirt could even kill them.
19:26And Mars is not the sort of place where you would ever want to get seriously ill.
19:32Millions of miles from all the hospitals and healthcare of the Earth.
19:37There are ideas of how to clean the poisonous soil using water or bacteria.
19:45But the technology is not yet ready.
19:48The first settlers will need to find a safer way to grow food.
19:52And NASA has the solution.
19:56Hydroponics.
19:58Hydroponics will provide all the food a Martian settler might need.
20:02Instead of growing in soil, the settlers grow crops in water.
20:07So all you need to do is bring the seeds or the plants and then have them grow right there in water.
20:12But if we decide to grow our crops hydroponically on Mars, then we still have this problem of needing lots and lots of water.
20:21Before astronauts water their plants, they'll need water to drink.
20:27And Mars hasn't had running water for millions of years.
20:31We've all seen the movies of people stranded in different places and having to survive.
20:37And they can last for months without food.
20:40But a human cannot last beyond three days without water.
20:48Astronauts on the International Space Station recycle water from bathing, breath, urine and sweat.
20:56But they still need 1,500 gallons sent up each year.
21:02Each delivery weighs over six tons.
21:07Transporting water to Mars will add a lot of weight to the manifest.
21:12You have to use fuel to launch it.
21:15But then you also have to use more fuel to launch the weight of the other fuel.
21:19And so on and so on.
21:21You have to keep to an absolute minimum the amount of weight you try to launch from Earth.
21:27So if NASA wants to set up residence on Mars, astronauts will need to find a water source.
21:33Even though no liquid water exists on the planet's surface, there are other places to look.
21:41It turns out there is a lot of water on Mars.
21:44It's trapped underneath the ground, beneath the dirt and the soils at high latitudes.
21:48It's also found in huge volumes up at the polar ice caps.
21:54Ice, you melt and it becomes water. You can drink it. Yay!
21:58You can grow plants and do things like that.
21:59In fact, if you were to melt all of Mars' polar ice, then you would be able to cover the globe in water.
22:07So ice is an extremely important thing to have access to.
22:12So if we do go to Mars to explore and live there, following the ice is the way it's going to go.
22:20Even if NASA's astronauts can turn the Martian ice into drinking water,
22:24without another resource, settlers will be dead in three minutes.
22:32Oxygen to breathe.
22:34There is oxygen on Mars, but it's not in the air. You can't breathe it.
22:39It's bound up in the dirt and combined with iron to make iron oxide, giving it its characteristic red color.
22:47And so we need to bring it with us, and that's a huge amount to bring.
22:51Or we need to make it at Mars, and that's really difficult.
22:55We can deliver oxygen to the ISS.
22:58But the trip to Mars is long, so there will be few supply missions.
23:04Once you're on Mars, you can't pull out your app and order an oxygen delivery to your door.
23:09You've got to take it with you, and that's a lot of oxygen.
23:14NASA astronauts will need a way to make oxygen on the Red Planet.
23:20And the Space Agency is working on a solution.
23:23When their 2020 rover arrives on Mars, it will carry out the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE.
23:36MOXIE will take carbon dioxide from the Martian air and use electricity to split that CO2 and release oxygen that astronauts could breathe in the future.
23:50This test will create oxygen on another planet for the first time, but MOXIE can't make enough for a crewed mission to Mars.
23:59MOXIE will be able to make about half a pound of oxygen per day, which is only enough to keep a human alive for about six hours.
24:11NASA needs to significantly scale up the technology to support a whole crew on Mars.
24:17But even if the astronauts can survive on the Red Planet, can they actually reach it?
24:28This is a long trip in a bathtub with three other people. It's really challenging.
24:33I think we're still asking ourselves this question, how will we do it?
24:36NASA plans to put boots on Mars.
24:57To achieve this, you need to carry a lot of stuff.
25:01You need oxygen, you need medical supplies, you need food, you need stores of water, you need some fuel if you want to come back.
25:11And all this has to be packed into an incredibly tiny volume.
25:18NASA's solution? Orion. A 28-ton spacecraft nearly twice the mass of a school bus.
25:25The rocket that launches Orion will need to produce millions of pounds of thrust, and that is a problem.
25:36If we decided tomorrow, like, hey, you know what, let's go to Mars, we can't. We don't have powerful enough rockets to do it.
25:43In 1969, NASA's Saturn V rocket fired Apollo astronauts to the moon with 7.6 million pounds of thrust.
25:56That's the power of more than 34 jumbo jets.
26:00A Saturn V could have sent astronauts to Mars.
26:04Not anymore. Stop making them.
26:06To break free from Earth's gravity, the space rocket must travel at 25,000 miles an hour.
26:15To achieve that, NASA is building the most powerful rocket in the world.
26:20The Space Launch System, or SLS, is the rocket that's being designed to carry Orion off of Earth and beyond low Earth orbit.
26:27And the philosophy is, hey, remember those big rockets that we used to make back in the 60s and stuff? Let's do that again, but more so.
26:39It's really big. It's larger than the Saturn V rocket that was built to carry the Apollo spacecraft, and is therefore going to be the largest rocket built.
26:47The Space Launch System will be taller than the Statue of Liberty.
26:52Its gargantuan engines will thrust the rocket through the atmosphere with the horsepower of 160,000 Corvettes, producing 8.8 million pounds of thrust.
27:06The SLS will be able to blast the Orion capsule into space and send it on its way to Mars.
27:14Unfortunately, the rocket has fallen behind schedule. Its maiden test flight was set for December of 2017.
27:26Now, it's scheduled for the end of 2020.
27:30Critics see the SLS as a waste of money, with the project reported to be billions of dollars over budget.
27:38It's still hoped NASA's Space Launch System will go to Mars in the 2030s.
27:49But even though the red planet is our neighbor, the timing of our visit will be complicated.
27:56If you're planning a family vacation and you want to get in the car, it's easy, right?
28:00You look at a map and you say, I live in City A and I want to go to City B and I'll just take the highways there.
28:06Well, great. Now imagine that City A is moving this way at 50 miles per hour and this city is moving this way at 200 miles per hour.
28:14Now what do you do?
28:16Well, that is a very small problem compared to getting to another planet.
28:19The timeline of a Mars mission, the scheduling, if you will, is all governed by celestial mechanics, the orbits of the planets.
28:26It's not just you pick a time to go to Mars randomly whenever you feel like going.
28:30You've literally got to wait for the planets to be aligned, right?
28:34On average, the distance from the Earth to Mars is about 140 million miles.
28:39But this is changing all the time because we are both planets that are orbiting the Sun.
28:42So about the closest that Earth ever comes to Mars is a distance of about 35 million miles.
28:52But in other times when we're on the opposite side of the Sun from Mars, it can be as much as 250 million miles.
28:59Launching near the time of Mars' closest approach shortens the journey.
29:04So NASA can save on fuel and resources, boosting the mission's chances of success.
29:12But this planetary alignment only happens every 26 months.
29:18So if NASA misses a launch window, it'll have to wait over two years for another go.
29:25But simply picking the right time isn't enough.
29:28Mars and the Earth are both orbiting the Sun, so Orion can't fly in a straight line to Mars.
29:40Instead, it'll use what's known as a Hohmann transfer.
29:45What we want to do is sort of put ourselves on our spacecraft in orbit around the Sun.
29:51So we might start right here on Earth, launch our spacecraft,
29:55and essentially we just make a nice gentle arc that's arcing around the Sun so that it can naturally slide into this orbit and then end up on Mars.
30:08The journey will take around 10 months.
30:11To get there quicker means burning more fuel, which is not an option.
30:15The Hohmann transfer keeps fuel usage low by putting the craft in an orbit that gradually intersects with the orbit of Mars before being captured by the red planet's gravity.
30:31But the crew will need to get their direction just right.
30:35The way the orbits work, you've got to aim in a little bit different direction from where Mars appears to be now.
30:41You've got to aim for where it's going to be when you get there.
30:44This has to happen so that it can naturally slide into this orbit and then end up on Mars.
30:50If we miss that precision, then we just could end up hurtling out into space.
30:57Even if NASA hit their target, the crew still has a long 10-month journey in space.
31:03The human body is just simply not designed for long duration space travel.
31:11Space travel can destroy bones, weaken heart muscles and even mess with the mind.
31:19Could a crew survive the journey to the red planet?
31:33NASA plans to put humans on Mars in the 2030s.
31:45Rocket technology will be pushed to its limits.
31:50But the greatest hurdle is our own fragile bodies.
31:54Out there in a spacecraft between the planets, all bets are off.
32:01It's going to be a dangerous trip.
32:05Both hands down about the fourth rung up.
32:08When astronaut James Irwin stood on the moon, his heart beat irregularly.
32:12Back on Earth, Irwin suffered heart attacks, which eventually proved fatal.
32:21A 2016 study found that Apollo lunar astronauts are four to five times more likely to die
32:28from cardiovascular disease than astronauts who never left Earth's orbit.
32:36One cause could be deep space radiation.
32:39And the radiation in outer space won't just be damaging the heart muscles,
32:45but also the nervous system and astronauts' brains in outer space.
32:52Astronauts heading to Mars will face radiation created in the core of stars.
32:58Some comes from our sun, when solar ejections throw out streams of deadly charged particles.
33:09There are also cosmic rays from outside the solar system.
33:15Created in supernovas, the death of giant stars.
33:20These energetic particles race through the galaxy at close to the speed of light.
33:27And you don't want to be exposed to too many of them.
33:30In low doses, it's not a problem at all, really.
33:31But in high enough doses, these things penetrate our cells and damage our DNA,
33:36and over the long term can cause really bad damage to human bodies in space.
33:42The longer you stay in space, the greater the danger.
33:48Remember, our missions to the moon were on the order of a week or two.
33:53A mission to Mars, at the minimum, is going to be something like two or two and a half years probably.
34:00These cosmic bullets can cause mutations and even cancer.
34:06New research from 2019 suggests space radiation will cause memory loss in one to three astronauts on a mission to Mars.
34:15And it's not just a problem forgetting where you've left your keys, trying to come back in through the airlock.
34:23You do not want to be forgetting emergency procedures.
34:27So we're going to have to really consider how do we mitigate the effects of this radiation
34:31to make it possible for people to go to Mars and actually spend some time without being ill.
34:37So the ship needs to protect the astronauts.
34:40Well, you think, well, just, I don't know, build a spaceship out of really thick lead.
34:46Like, well, that weighs a lot.
34:47And it turns out lead doesn't protect you from this kind of radiation.
34:50You need something else.
34:52Well, there is something else that protects you from this radiation, and that's water.
34:57We need to bring lots and lots of water to drink and cook with.
35:00And if we just place that water in a layer around our spacecraft, that can absorb the cosmic rays.
35:06You might think, well, you're drinking the very water that you're using to stop the radiation that's causing damage to us.
35:13Won't the water be dangerous to drink it?
35:15It doesn't really work quite like that.
35:17You're just taking one high-speed somatomic particle and changing it into another one as it gets captured by the water.
35:23Water's still going to be safe to drink, fortunately.
35:25But even if NASA can shield its astronauts from radiation, space causes other health issues.
35:36Your bones are starting to demineralize. They're getting weak. You're getting arthritis, even in the prime of your life.
35:43Weightlessness during a ten-month journey will thin the astronauts' bones. Muscles will waste away, making walking on landing difficult.
35:55We've evolved. We've grown up on a planet with gravity.
36:00And as soon as you're an astronaut in outer space, floating around in weightlessness, it looks like a lot of fun, but actually your body is deteriorating from the inside.
36:10Astronauts need assistance to walk when returning to Earth.
36:16If NASA's Mars crew arrive on the red planet in a poor physical state, they won't be able to function.
36:29Intense exercise regimes in space would help the crew stay fit and healthy.
36:34But we're in the dark about the full impact of extended space travel.
36:45On a mission to Mars, bodies will be pushed to the extreme.
36:50To say that sending humans to Mars is a challenge would be an understatement.
36:55We could be ahead of ourselves.
36:56Eventually, we're going to lose people doing this, and that's something we have to face.
37:01The question is, is it worth it?
37:04But there may not be a choice.
37:08We know that over time, this planet is not going to be habitable.
37:13So we really should consider if there are places we can go outside of Earth.
37:16NASA's mission to Mars will be the toughest undertaking in its history.
37:39The launch from Earth will be a monumental challenge.
37:42The journey to Mars filled with danger.
37:49And survival on the red planet will be a test unlike anything NASA has faced before.
37:56It's easy to make a bullet list of why going to Mars is hard.
38:01And that's going to be a long list, and those bullet points are going to be scary.
38:05A lot of these are serious problems.
38:07NASA's mission to Mars needs to be a success.
38:12Earth is in danger.
38:16From climate change, to asteroid strikes, to nuclear destruction.
38:24We need an escape plan.
38:27Earth may just need a lifeboat in the future.
38:32We are growing very quickly, and we're using a lot of our resources, and we're changing the planet.
38:39If we're looking for a lifeboat, maybe Mars is the closest, best chance we've got.
38:45Despite the challenges, NASA's goal is to send the Orion spacecraft to Mars in the 2030s.
38:56But to do that, we need a rehearsal.
39:00I'd love to see us go to Mars. I would love to go myself.
39:03But it might be nice to have a little bit of practice before we try it.
39:05Where better to practice than a destination closer to home?
39:14The ultimate aim is to get humans to Mars.
39:18And one approach is to first have a goal of getting humans back to the Moon.
39:23Orion will first make the shorter trip to the Moon.
39:29There are a lot of advantages to using the Moon.
39:32We can test out different scenarios for operations.
39:36We can also test out technologies much more close to home.
39:40And so if something were to go awry, we can much more easily intervene.
39:44It's a little bit safer.
39:46If we send people to Mars, you know, it's going to be a lot harder for us to help them if they need it.
39:55NASA's Orion Moon missions will be far more than just a training exercise.
40:02They'll use them to build a lunar outpost called Gateway, a space station in orbit around the Moon.
40:10It's actually a lot easier to do that than trying to build something on Earth and get it out of Earth orbit.
40:17Six planned missions will build and maintain a space station in orbit around the Moon.
40:24It will be a proving ground for the technology and the science that will help us get to the Red Planet.
40:31And once NASA has ironed out any problems, the real mission can begin.
40:37Gateway won't simply be a small step for man.
40:42It'll be a springboard to another planet.
40:44When we first sent humans to another planetary body, it was the Moon.
40:51And we had never done that before.
40:53So now we've got the Moon under our belt.
40:55We know something about how to send people to another planet.
40:58We don't yet have all the technologies that we might need to send humans to Mars, but we're well on our way.
41:03As NASA begins its journey to the Red Planet, not everyone is on board.
41:12A lot of people think of Mars as our lifeboat just in case we screw things up on Earth.
41:18But we really need to take care of our own planet.
41:21If you want to go there and explore or build a base, more power to you.
41:27But I'm going to stay where it's a little bit more green and blue.
41:30Even so, NASA is already building rockets and testing the technology.
41:42The stage is set for humankind's greatest adventure.
41:48I think we will send humans to Mars.
41:51It's just a really, really, really big problem that we have to figure out how to solve.
41:56But we're good at solving problems.
41:57Given the human mind and how curious we are and how much we like to climb the next mountain and achieve the next challenge, Mars is right there.
42:07There is something in the human psyche that will send us to Mars despite all of the challenges.
42:12And so, for sure, we will go to Mars.
42:15Even though it's extremely difficult to go to Mars, the answer is always yes if somebody asks me if we should go.
42:21Because that's the ultimate goal.
42:23Because that's the ultimate goal.
42:24There is something for Mars and the most прик سp Tree, and it's really important.
42:26Every time it is ready, we will go to Mars.
42:29By updating the mission, the purpose of the future.
42:30Let's see, that's a different one.
42:31Way to go there.
42:32And the future will catch these regions after we go, thatоч Game of Thrones has used a multiple커 punches.
42:34Make sure the two points is close to another alien.
42:36And everything is one of the centers of the site.
42:38And that's the perfect end.
42:40And all the videos about spinning the exercises on the martACH game.
42:43Let's go.
42:44We'll wait a minute.
42:47After the pandemic are deeply concerned about life.
42:50There is no Це tilKS.