{"502461":{"#nid":"502461","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mars: Why, How, and When? GT-AE Faculty Weigh in on the Debate","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWhile Matt Damon\u0027s latest flick, \u0022The Martian\u0022 paints an fantastic version of what life on the Red Planet might be like, several Georgia Tech professors can put a more detailed prediction together. Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ERobert Braun\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;was a member of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder entry, descent, and landing team and has been a part of every Mars landed mission since. He\u2019s now the chair of the standing review board for the Mars 2020 Project, NASA\u2019s next large rover mission.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EDave Spencer\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003Ewas also on the Pathfinder team as mission designer while working at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California. He went on to serve as the Mars Odyssey mission manager (2001) and was the deputy project manager for the Phoenix Mars lander (2008). He joined Georgia Tech after leading Phoenix surface operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBraun,\u0026nbsp; Spencer, and their colleague,\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EAmanda Stockton\u003C\/strong\u003E, from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry sat down with the Institute\u0027s\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EJason Maderer\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003Eto discuss and debate when humans will get to Mars, the cost of this unprecedented mission, and the technical challenges of making the historic journey.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003EWhy should humans go to Mars?\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Exploration is in our DNA. It\u2019s what we as a people, and the United States in particular, are built upon. Mars is the next logical step and the direction our species is headed toward.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;NASA was built on big goals and dreams. Achieving large goals is precisely what the nation expects from its space program. A great way to build U.S. scientific and technological competence is by aiming large.\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhy can\u2019t we go there now?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EWe could choose to start sending humans to Mars in the next decade if we put our minds to it. The pace of our journey is driven by the pace of our investment in the technologies and capabilities needed for exploration.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EThere\u2019s a fundamental difference between the way the Apollo missions were undertaken versus the current way the Mars exploration program is conceived. Apollo had a very clear set of goals to launch humans into space within a decade. Now, the mindset is that we\u2019re operating under a fixed budget, we must live within it, and only build as we can. That\u2019s a very slow process.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EIn the Apollo days, the NASA budget was 10 times what it is today. It was roughly 4 percent of the gross domestic product. Now it\u2019s about .4 percent. Imagine if revenues for a university or a computer company were one-tenth what they were 50 years ago.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003EWhy is it so different?\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EApollo wasn\u2019t really about sending people to the moon within a decade. It was about proving the technological superiority of the United States in a race with the Soviet Union. That\u2019s why funding poured into NASA. It\u2019s a different world now. People who are waiting for the next Kennedy moment are going to wait a long time. I think we\u2019re going to have to figure this out within the general federal funding guidelines that have been in place since the Nixon administration: NASA has to take its rightful place in the federal budget among the other priorities the United States invests in.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;So that means an international collaboration is essential for something as complex and expensive as going to Mars.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBraun:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Yes. And more significant partnerships with the U.S. commercial space sector.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003EWhat are some of the biggest technological challenges?\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;A round trip is a minimum of two years: at least six months to get there, one year on Mars, and about six months to get back. The radiation exposure an astronaut would get during that time period is a large fraction of what\u2019s considered to be a safe level of radiation dosage for a lifetime. Radiation shielding is needed, but that adds mass. And mass is one of the key costs of going into space.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBraun:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;And then there\u2019s landing very large payloads. The Curiosity rover is the largest thing we\u2019ve ever put on Mars, and it\u2019s the size of a small car. For humans, we\u2019re talking about landing a series of two-story houses to establish a base camp. We also need to improve the efficiency of our propulsion systems for the flight to Mars and learn to make use of the surface resources available once there.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to what one would see from a spacecraft. Image credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003EWould people come back from the first mission?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EI hope so. There are groups that want to do pure settlement: a one-way trip. But I don\u2019t think the U.S. and the world would make the investment if it were a one-way trip. I think the reason you send people to Mars is to bring them back so they can be heroes and inspire billions of others \u2014 like the Apollo astronauts. I would want to meet them. Wouldn\u2019t you?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;It\u2019s in our culture that the initial explorers go and come back. Think about Lewis and Clark, who returned to civilization after exploring the western part of the continent. Eventually, and not much later, people went out and settled the American West in large numbers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Personally, I think there will be a handful of round-trip missions before we start settling.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003EWhen will people land on Mars?\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESpencer:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003ENo earlier than 2040 and no later than 2100.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EEight years after we decide to do it. In other words, eight years after we have made considerable investments in proving the capabilities needed. We need a few capabilities for this mission: a big rocket, radiation shielding.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;An ascent vehicle.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Right. There are about six capabilities needed for a human Mars mission. Right now we\u2019re probably investing in three of them, and at a very low level. I\u2019ll know we are serious about sending people to Mars when I see this country and others invest in the needed capabilities in a significant way. Once we do, we\u2019ll land eight years later.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;You\u2019re more optimistic than I am.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003EHow much money will it take?\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EA lot for the space program, but not very much for the world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;At least $100 billion spread over 10 years. That\u2019s not that much. You can spend a billion dollars easily on a relatively common infrastructure project. What does a football stadium cost? $1 billion?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Roughly $10-$15 billion a year for a decade. Right now NASA\u2019s yearly budget is about $18 billion, and we spend about half of that on human spaceflight. If the rest of the world (Russia, China, Europe) matched the U.S. investment, Mars would be within our grasp.\u003Cbr \/\u003EFinal question: What does Martian exploration look like 100-150 years from now?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;It will be like Antarctica is today: People will be ferried to the surface to do research for a certain time period and then return. There will be crops on Mars. But it will be a small footprint \u2013 it\u2019s tough to live up there. But we will.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBraun:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EOne hundred years from now, our space program will be even more significant and more ubiquitous to life on Earth. We\u2019ll have journeyed to the ocean worlds in the outer solar system, where many believe there may be life waiting to be discovered. We\u2019ll have learned about other earths around distant stars. We\u2019ll have imaged them and seen blue oceans and white clouds. In 100-150 years, we will have settled Mars at some level, as well as answered other fundamental societal questions such as: Are we alone and where did we come from?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cem\u003EAmanda Stockton\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u0026nbsp;is an assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her research focuses on the origin of biomolecules and the emergence of life on Mars and throughout the galaxy. She doesn\u2019t just cook up chemical reactions in her lab \u2014 she builds instruments she hopes will fly someday to Mars and search for the basic building blocks of life, whatever it may happen to look like 140 million miles from home.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow do you find life on Mars?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHow do you find life on Mars when it\u2019s completely different from life in a totally different chemical and thermodynamic environment, so there\u2019s no reason to think that it\u2019s anything like what we have here. We can\u2019t assume it\u2019s chosen the same building blocks as what makes up our proteins or DNA.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHere\u2019s another way of thinking about it: There are 20 amino acids on Earth. They build the enzymes that create the fingerprint of terrestrial life. There are more than 100 amino acids found in meteorites. The fingerprint, if you even want to call it that, is completely different. You can\u2019t assume Martian life would have the exact same 20-amino-acid fingerprint as Earth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Ephoto - hand holding circular device\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmanda Stockton holds a programmable microfluidic device that enables automated sample processing and analysis of amino acids. Photo: Fitrah Hamid\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut here\u2019s the bigger issue \u2014 we have to quit sending the same instruments up there. We\u2019ve never sent or used an instrument on Mars that can directly detect amino acids. We\u2019re doing the chemistry wrong. Instead of heating samples and watching for organics to evaporate into a gas analyzer, we need a wet-extraction method that sends samples to a liquid analyzer. We need a fancy Martian espresso maker \u2014 something that can dig into the soil, put it into a liquid and a tool that can analyze the Martian espresso directly. That\u2019s when we\u2019ll truly know what\u2019s in the dirt.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI think there\u2019s life on Mars. We can get really far with analytical instruments, but to absolutely confirm it, you have to eventually send people. Robots and rovers can\u2019t think for themselves and recognize those patterns indicative of life, like faces and fingerprints. Humans can. But that brings up a different issue: People are living, breathing bags of bacteria capable of contaminating the planet. So when humans get there, we\u2019ll start searching and could very likely find only what we brought with us.\u003Cbr \/\u003EHumans on Mars prediction:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe have all the science and engineering in place to go right now. We just need to do it. All we\u2019re lacking is the funding and the political will. I really don\u2019t want us to go and contaminate the planet until an unmanned mission is able to return a definitive answer about life up there. Without that, we\u2019ll never know what\u2019s native and what came along with us. So I\u2019m thinking somewhere between 2040 and 2050.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"While Matt Damon\u0027s latest flick, \u0022The Martian\u0022 paints an fantastic version of what life on the Red Planet might be like, several Georgia Tech professors can put a more detailed prediction together."}],"uid":"30502","created_gmt":"2016-02-17 17:31:30","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:46","author":"Sapna Mistry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-09-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-09-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"474771":{"id":"474771","type":"image","title":"Robert Braun","body":null,"created":"1449257202","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:26:42","changed":"1475895225","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:45","alt":"Robert Braun","file":{"fid":"99262","name":"braun-bobby-square-headshot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/braun-bobby-square-headshot_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/braun-bobby-square-headshot_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":46986,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/braun-bobby-square-headshot_0.jpg?itok=Hs_WAaH2"}},"498751":{"id":"498751","type":"image","title":"David Spencer","body":null,"created":"1455145200","gmt_created":"2016-02-10 23:00:00","changed":"1475895258","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:18","alt":"David Spencer","file":{"fid":"204656","name":"spencer-david1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/spencer-david1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/spencer-david1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":43191,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/spencer-david1.jpg?itok=AGivhA4J"}}},"media_ids":["474771","498751"],"groups":[{"id":"1239","name":"School of Aerospace Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"136","name":"Aerospace"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"143001","name":"Amanda Stockton"},{"id":"98181","name":"David Spencer"},{"id":"126111","name":"GT-AE"},{"id":"7057","name":"Mars"},{"id":"2575","name":"Robert Braun"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["kathleen.moore@ae.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}