NIRMAL YESODA
Donald Trump, the reigning president of the United States who will face the election on November 3 has assured Americans that the country will be the first in the world to land humans on Mars. The president also added that NASA will land the first women on the moon by 2024.
“America will land the first woman on the Moon and the United States will be the first nation to land an astronaut on Mars, we’re getting very close,” said Trump, at his campaign rally in Janesville, Wisconsin.
The comments of Donald Trump comes at a time when SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced his plans to take touchdown Mars using the already developed Starship. In an interaction with Space.com, Musk claimed that the first uncrewed mission will be launched within four years, and it will be followed by a manned mission.
Recently, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has said that a human settlement on the moon will be developed by 2028. However, skeptics believe that NASA’s timeline is unrealistic, especially at a time when the space agency is facing a lack of funding.
The dangers posed by space radiation will be one of the major challenges that will bother NASA during their upcoming Mars missions. A few months back, Samantha Rolfe, a renowned astrobiologist had claimed that the Mars missions planned by NASA and SpaceX could be suicidal. According to Rolfe, astronauts who reach the Red Planet will be exposed to deadly space radiation, as the Red Planet does not have its own magnetic field.
Due to the absence of the magnetic field, the atmosphere provides very little shelter to space radiation. The astrobiologist also claimed that it is unethical to expose astronauts to lethal radiation that could cause serious health problems.
