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Astronaut Chris Hadfield explains why Man has not yet set foot on Mars

Grand Delta Project: Alone on Mars. Credits: Seul sur Mars

According to renowned Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Man should already have set foot on Mars. However, this would have involved a number of extremely high risks, not to mention certain death!

Chris Hadfield is an ex engineer and Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, and was part of two NASA space shuttle missions: STS-74 (Atlantis) in 1995 and STS-100 (Endeavour) in 2001. He later went on board the Russian space flight Soyouz TMA-07M on the 19th December 2012, to become the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station. Since his return to Earth on the 13th May 2013, the astronaut, now aged 58, has been retired.

Hadfield is extremely active on social networks, and recently shared his knowledge and opinions regarding the exploration of Mars on the web platform Masterclass. The Business Insider reported the astronaut’s theories in an article that appeared on the 8th July 2018.

“We could send people to Mars decades ago. The technology that took us to the moon and back when I was just a kid — that technology can take us to Mars.”

Chris Hadfield astronaute Canada
Credits: Wikimedia Commons

Although a research project regarding Martian conquest saw the light of day in 1952, driven by a NASA engineer, the fact remains that no human mission has ever been organised. This should happen around the year 2030, if NASA’s predictions are to come true, unless SpaceX manage to live up to their claims and beat them to it in 2024.

According to Chris Hadfield, Man has had the means to go to Mars since they successfully landed on the moon. However, it isn’t without risks – death would be certain. This hits home even harder when we consider the deaths that occurred during space missions in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Canadian astronaut also reminds us that Mars is “about 660 times as far as the moon, with a round-trip journey that could take 500 days or even three years in a tiny tube.”

Also questioned about projects led by private enterprises such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, Hadfield estimated that the use of chemical rocket fuel to propel the space shuttles should not be the order of the day when it comes to a mission to Mars. He estimates that this would be like trying to use “a sailboat or a pedal boat to try and travel around the world.”

In fact, the type of propulsion currently in use requires sacrifices to be made in terms of space and weight, in order to allow room for fuel reserves. This is a major limitation in terms of the installation of protective devices against cosmic radiation, food stores or the astronauts’ living space.

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