Human Missions to Mars: Enabling Technologies for Exploring the Red Planet (Springer Praxis Books)

A mission to send humans to explore the surface of Mars has been theultimate goal of planetary exploration since the 1950s, when von Braunconjectured a flotilla of 10 interplanetary vessels carrying a crew of atleast 70 humans. Since then, more than 1,000 studies were carried outon human missions to Mars, but after 60 years of study, we remain in theearly planning stages. The second edition of this book now includes anannotated history of Mars mission studies, with quantitative data whereverpossible.Retained from the first edition, Donald Rapp looks at human missionsto Mars from an engineering perspective. He divides the mission into anumber of stages: Earth’s surface to low-Earth orbit (LEO); departing fromLEO toward Mars; Mars orbit insertion and entry, descent and landing;ascent from Mars; trans-Earth injection from Mars orbit and Earth return.For each segment, he analyzes requirements for candidate technologies.In this connection, he discusses the status and potential of a wide rangeof elements critical to a human Mars mission, including life supportconsumables, radiation effects and shielding, microgravity effects, abortoptions and mission safety, possible habitats on the Martian surface andaero-assisted orbit entry decent and landing. For any human mission tothe Red Planet the possible utilization of any resources indigenous toMars would be of great value and such possibilities, the use of indigenousresources is discussed at length. He also discusses the relationship of lunarexploration to Mars exploration.Detailed appendices describe the availability of solar energy on the Moonand Mars, and the potential for utilizing indigenous water on Mars.The second edition provides extensive updating and additions to the firstedition, including many new figures and tables, and more than 70 new references, as of 2015. Read more