Russian Aerospace Agency Works on Manned Mission to Mars

Russian Aerospace Agency Works on Manned Mission to Mars

The Russian Aerospace Agency has announced a tender for design bureaus and space
companies to define details of the first manned flight to Mars.

Experts think that the program will be presented in 2005, and the flight may
take place in 2015-2020, Director of the Institute of Medical and Biological
Problems Academician Anatoly Grigoryev has told Itar-Tass.

Current information about Mars is incomplete, experts say. Fragments of the
planet are being studied, but it is so far impossible to have a full picture or
confirm the versions of life there. The data gaps can be filled only in the
manned space flight.

Technical considerations of the program have been done for more than 10 years in
various Russian organizations. The task of the manned space flight to Mars was
not set, but much was done in that sphere. ``The manned flight to Mar is a
super-task, but it is quite workable technically. Certainly, there are still
details to be worked on for the next few years,`` Grigoryev said.

A super-heavy rocket, a spaceship and a landing module with living quarters have
to be developed and built for the flight to Mars. The easiest formula of the
flight is such: the booster will bring the spacecraft to a circumterrestrial
orbit, from where the spacecraft will reach an orbit around Mars within nine
months. The landing module will come down to the planet, and people will work
and live there for three to four months. Then the landing module will take off,
dock with the spacecraft and return to the Earth within nine months more.
Experts think that it will be a completely new machinery with the most advanced
automatic equipment. Cosmonauts must be able to do everything themselves without
any commands from the Earth. It will take 20 minutes to send a signal from the
Earth to Mars, and some decisions have to be taken immediately.

The flight duration makes scientists to think about fully autonomous
life-sustaining systems for cosmonauts. The production of water and oxygen in
space is already a solved problem. Russia's Mir orbiting station and the ISS
have equipment, which purifies the air and produces oxygen. Water is made of any
liquids possible, including the human waste products.

The food question is more serious. A food reserve for two years will take too
much space, so it cannot be carried from the Earth. Thus cosmonauts will have to
make their own food during the space flight. The Institute of Medical and
Biological Problems had repeatedly made such experiments on the Mir board. Yet
the cosmonauts succeeded only in raising quails and growing wheat. A diverse and
complete food ration is still to be developed.

The first expedition to Mars may be made of four or five people — the
commander, the pilot, scientists and the doctor. ``There must be a doctor in the
crew, and he must be a surgeon and a psychologist. Everything may happen within
two years of the flight: from appendix problems to a brawl.``

Women are likely to be barred from the expeditions on psychological reasons. ``A
homogeneous collective is more serried, while the presence of women increases
the probability of conflicts,`` Grigoryev said.

The very selection of candidates to the manned flight to Mars will be different
from current practices. Up till now cosmonauts have been tested for diseases
incompatible with space conditions. The candidates to the Mars flight will have
to undergo a deeper examination, a gene test, so that medics bar people
predisposed to diseases and the influence of negative factors.

The works will cost several billions of dollars. Naturally, Russia can`t do the
project on its own. It has become a common practice to launch large space
programs together. Everyone wishes to cooperate. Russian scientists intend to
offer the Mars project to everyone in the next few years. First and foremost, it
will be offered to the ISS partners — the United States, Europe, Canada and
Japan.

Scientists were attracted to Mars since the beginning of the 20th century when
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky drew a Mars spaceship. It appeared that it was more
difficult to conquer the planet than they thought. Superstitious specialists say
that Mars is protected by the ``Great Galactic Vampire``, because only one third
of spacecraft sent to the planet completed their missions to a certain degree.
The rest either vanished on their way to Mars or burnt down in its atmosphere.

The first probe to Mars was sent by the Soviet Union on October 10, 1960. The
probe did not even reach the circumterrestrial orbit. Only six of the 20 Soviet
and Russian expeditions to Mars before 1996 were successful. The largest success
was achieved in 1971 when the Soviet spacecraft landed on the planet and
transmitted a video signal to the Earth.

The United States also had bad luck with Mars, but the failures were not that
fatal. Mariner-4 flew 10,000 kilometers away from Mars in 1965 and took several
pictures of the planet. Nine years later the American Viking-1 and Viking-2
landed on Mars and transmitted a television signal to the Earth. Twenty-one
years later, in 1997, the Mars Pathfinder interplanetary automatic station of
the United States landed on Mars and brought a Mars vehicle there.

The mysterious disappearance of Mars Observer in 1993 hit the strongest blow on
the American exploration of the planet. The expedition, which cost a billion of
dollars, unexpectedly ended three days before the spacecraft reached the Mars
orbit. Nobody knows what has happened to it. Mere negligence ruined Mars Climate
Orbiter in 1999. The spacecraft burnt down in the atmosphere because digital
information of the on-board computer was not turned to the metric system.

America`s 2001 Mars Odyssey is on its way to Mars. It is expected to reach the
destination point in October. Russian scientists have their HAND device on
Odyssey board, which may try to find water on the planet.

By Veronika Voskoboinikova Itar-Tass

AVIA.RU - Информационное агентство "Российская авиация и космонавтика"