Mars
 
 SURFACE EXPLORATION
 
One question that is being asked by people is, "Why go to
Mars"? The reasons are very simple. People want to gain
recognition of how they were the first people who went to
Mars and opened up a whole new world and most importantly
to move forward in economics.
 
As humans waste the precious materials and resources found
on this planet we have to consider going to other planets
to explore for materials and energy resources. Mars would
be the first area for industrial development and mining in
the "new world".
 
There are talks that by the end of this century that a
manned mission to Mars should take place. We must start
preparing ourselves properly in order to explore Mars
better. Scientists and researchers hopes when exploring
Mars is to find interesting minerals or matter that will
help us understand what Mars was like millions and millions
of years ago.
 
The first manned mission to Mars will be more complex then
that of the first Moon landing which the main goal for
going to the Moon was to just land safely. The main thing
that researchers and scientists are striving for is
exploratory, searching for useful raw materials such as
water and at the same time building up an extensive
scientific picture of Mars-its state at the present moment,
its history and what the future developments are going to
be.
 
As astronauts journey to Mars and finally reach there the
main concern and top priority when landing will be the
astronauts safety. There will be more flexibility when
choosing a landing site. The astronauts will decide where
they want to land but must take into consideration that the
roving vehicles would be able to provide extended range
when travelling on the surface of Mars. This most probably
would ensure that the sites that are in the scientists
interest would easily be accessible.
 
Possible landing sites must be chosen under one goal, that
would be the overall understanding of the surface and not
by a place that looks attractive or has special features
even if they seem alluring. The things that have to be
taken in account for possible landing sites are: -
guaranteeing that the explorers will touch down at the
place which is specified; - choosing a place where possible
interesting geological features may be found; - choosing an
area where rocks have recently been exposed; - a certain
area must be specified of where the roving vehicles may go.
 
Regions on Mars that have extensive dune fields and barely
any bedrock, the surface mobilities should be within a few
kilometres to guarantee that samples can be obtained
without any difficulty. Landing sites that have easy access
to more than one type of interesting terrain has an
advantage but unfortunately these sites lean to be more on
the rough side and might pose to be a weighty hazard and
obstacles might be in the way of roving vehicles.
 
There are a possible of ten prime landing sites that might
be chosen when a manned mission to Mars has taken place.
The Kasei and Mangala valles are made up of striking
features which seem to have channels that are evidently
engraved by flowing water from the past. Extensive studies
would provide significant clues to why Mars lost reserves
of water. These locations would offer and give explorers a
big advantage as this area is close to the large volcanoes
and volcanic plains that are near the equator, which will
have affected their geology a tremendous deal.
 
There are other riveting sites other than these, but they
are difficult to reach for a manned mission to Mars. The
Polar region sites are precluded for manned missions
because fuel would be expensive to change form an initial
parking orbit to a tilted orbit in order to make it
possible to land there. With non-polar sites, it would be
difficult to land on a gigantic volcanoes or canyons. The
problems with visiting the southern hemisphere regions is
that it is less attractive then the northern hemisphere and
the terrain is much more rougher. These areas are also the
origin of dust storms and if a spacecraft were to land
there it would be foolish. Although these regions are not
going to be explored by explorers, at a later time or date
they will be visited by long-range vehicles, with men or
without, sent from bases elsewhere.
 
Once the space craft has landed on the Mars and a go-ahead
for a long stay has been given the crew they will eat and
rest for their venture on the surface the next day. As
walkers emerge onto Mars they will have to lower visors
which is coated with a thin, transparent layer of gold
which eliminates unsafe ultraviolet radiation.
 
As they emerge on the surface they will go around their
spacecraft and look for any damage done and then will grab
soil samples in case the explorers have to make a quick
retreat. At the same time they will unload a roving vehicle
in which they will travel.
 
On foot, explorers would be able to cover a little more
than a mile from the base that they would have set up. If
rovers (land vehicles) were taken along then more area
could be covered during exploring the planet and then would
easily be able carried back to their base.
 
When travelling across the Martian surface there will be
many difficulties encountered by the explorers when using
the roving vehicles. On a manned mission there will be two
kinds of roving vehicles one for smooth surfaces and one
for not so smooth surfaces in an effort to increase the
range of exploration. Unmanned rovers might have the same
idea as the Soviet rover which has six wheels,
nuclear-powered design and weighing several hundred pounds
and each rover would be equipped with a standard set of
sensors. Several rovers would be dispatched and controlled
possiblly by an orbiting satellite. After the crew has left
Mars the rover would still probe around Mars and collect
samples. The rover would be controlled from earth.
 
Larger manned rovers will also be needed for transporting
up to six hundred and eighty kilogram loads on forty
kilometre journeys round trip. They should be able to go
over twenty degree slopes and be able to climb one foot
boulders. Even these rovers would be limited. For more vast
exploration a vehicle with a laboratory would be sent. The
weight of the rover would be between four to five tons but
it would be able to transport two or three crew members for
as long as thirty days. The range of the rover would be 100
kilometres from their base and reach speeds up to
thirty-two kilometres per hour and carry two tons of
equipment. In the Soviet unmanned mission to Mars balloons
will be essential when the soviets arrive there. They have
many advantages such as being simple, cheap and light and
would be able to cover thousands of kilometres of land in a
few weeks. After each balloon is unpacked the crew would
test its instruments by plugging it into standard test
equipment and then attach a thin plastic object to it and
inflate it with helium which would be in a pressure bottle
and then release the balloon and let it drift
independently. The heights that the balloon could be able
to reach would depend on its volume, the weight of the
payload that is in the balloon and the atmospheric
temperature which changes during the course of the day.
 
Later Manned Mars missions would have planes to explore the
surface. Studies have shown that a powered aircraft would
be able to drop scientific packages, penetrators and even
deliver materials needed by parties that are exploring the
planet.
 
After landing on Mars the crew would bolt together the
plane. It would look like large powered glider and would be
launched by a catapult or rockets. The plane would have
fifteen horse power engine and it would be driven by steam
which would be generated by the chemical breakdown of
hydrazine.
 
The tremendous benefit of having a Mars plane is that it
can be reused, it would be easy to manoeuvre and the range
the plane would be able to travel. Maybe one day in a
future mission planes would be able to glide over the
surface of the planet which would benefit scientific
surface exploration.
 
When the explorers are on the planet their days will be
long and exhausting. Human explorers can explore more
efficiently and more thoroughly than robots can. Humans are
more adaptable than robots. Humans would be able to assess
a huge assortment of situations faster and would be able to
adjust to their actions accordingly to what has to be done.
A trained geologist with a rock hammer can accumulate more
samples that would be available around the planet in an
hour than an automated rover would be able to do in a year.
 
Humans will be extremely valuable in the search for life on
the planet. A professional astronaut would have the skills
to easily spot a protected site that would be favourable to
life. An example of this would be a spot sheltered by a
rock. Equipment which is automatic that astronauts have is
better for things like, repetitive measurements which would
be stretched over long periods of time.
 
Scientific research will be divided into two main
categories. There would be a day to day exploration by the
astronauts which would have more difficult tasks. They
would also be responsible for long-term monitoring by
automatic packages which would be left behind when they
leave the planet.
 
The main concern for the astronauts would be geological
investigation of the planet. There might be one or more
geologists in a mission to Mars. Teams of geologists at
mission control will plan exploration traverses by using
the orbiter's to take pictures of the surface. These
pictures will produce a route map that would help the
astronauts while they are exploring the planet. The
astronauts will not be just responsible to collect samples
and bring them home but also they must study the rocks
while on the planet and conduct some analyses.
 
The things that astronauts are looking for is the chemical
and mineral composition of the rocks which would provide
them with the information on the geological history of
Mars, at which places were the rocks formed, at which
temperatures and pressures were they formed, development of
the atmosphere and the history of water on Mars. Necessary
information will be profited from the rocks that are on the
surface, but when drilling deep into the ground and
dislodging the rock, it will uncover the historical
development of the regions geology.
 
Each day the astronauts job will be to set on the surface
in a rover which would contain standard geological tools
like hammers, chisels, rakes, sieves and tongs which would
enable them to pick up essential rocks even if they seem
awkward to pick up with their space suits on. Connected to
their space suits there will be a gnomon. This unique
device is like a tripod with a free-hanging central rod,
which is able to photograph against each sample before it
is dislocated from the surface so the exact location is
know to the astronauts. This photograph shows the scale of
each of the objects removed, slop of the ground and its
shadow that indicates the direction of the Sun. A colour
pattern will be attached to the photograph which allow
scientists on Earth to reconstruct the colours which
surround the object removed. This is crucial because
cameras sometimes tend to distort the colour to some degree.
 
After each sample is photographed their locations would be
carefully written down. The astronaut will then place the
samples in hermetically sealed containers. Geologists would
highly recommend that a percentage of the sample be kept
refrigerated at Marslike temperatures to prevent the soil
sample to change on the way back to earth. The astronauts
rover would stop every few hundred feet and soil samples
would be tested automatically.
 
Drilling around the planet would be carried out on a
regular basis. This would be one of the astronauts most
vigorous activities. The rover of the astronaut will carry
electrical powered drills and a supply of aluminium tube
sections. The drill will be similar to jack-hammers used in
construction on Earth. The drill will be powered by a
compressor using Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere.
 
Mars' internal structure will be better understood when
scientists find out the rate of heat flow from the
interior. A method of doing this is by thermometers which
would be placed at different depths of Mars. Little heaters
would be positioned near thermometers which would reveal
how heat flows through the material that makes up the
surface layers.
 
Most probably on a trip to Mars there will be complicated
apparatus' for extensive analyses of soil. An electron
scanning microscope would probably be used to look for any
tiny fossils and aid in hopes of distinguish any minerals.
An X-ray fluorescence spectrometer will be used to record
the X-rays emitted by materials when they are irradiated by
a radioactive source which will discover the materials
present. There also will be a combined gas chromatography
and a mass spectrometer which will separate and measure the
gases that is driven off when a sample is heated
 
When humans and rovers finally get to the poles, their top
priority will be to get samples of the core which will be
taken from the layers of deposits of ice and dust (which is
millions of years old). This would probably have a record
of how the climate has changed over hundreds of million of
years.
 
There are numerous fascinating surface structures of Mars
and when explorers do go to Mars it will be interesting to
see what information they bring back about the places that
have already been identified and the things and places that
remain a mystery to us. These places include the volcanoes,
the north and south poles of Mars, the equatorial canyons,
the unique craters, basins etc. All these places when
studied will help us get a better understanding of the
planet which has amazed us from pictures that were taken
from non manned missions.
 
The volcanoes on the planet are the most startling features
of Mars. There are many volcanoes on Mars but the most
sensational is found near the equatorial region of Tharsis.
On the planet, volcanoes have been around much of the
planet's history. The general shape hints that eruptions of
fluid lava has very small amounts of ash in it. The
chemical composition of the terrestrial volcanoes on the
planet shows that lava and the rate at which the volcanoes
erupted affected the volcanoes's final structure.
 
The craters of Mars have a huge ranges from little as a
several meters across to huge broad basins which are up to
hundreds of kilometres in diameter. The southern hemisphere
contains hardly any craters which is visible but in the
northern hemisphere there an abundant amount of craters.
 
There are about sixteen basins on Mars each one larger
than0 two hundred and fifty kilometres in diameter
somewhere on the surface of Mars. Each basin appears to be
vast and multi-ringed. Some basins are fairly new but the
others are significantly old which look considerable eroded
 
There are many striking features of Mars but we must
understand the dilemma that is on Mars about the water.
There are many things on the surface of Mars that look like
water channels. Many years ago scientists thought that
these channels were made by erosion, by lava, or the wind
might have made these channels but this no longer holds
true today. Scientists know that water did once exist in
huge quantities by the visible channels of Mars.
 
We have found out that water did once exist on Mars but
where has it all gone? Unfavourable scientists can only
take a guess by what is know about the planet and then
estimate at how much water Mars once had, how much of the
water escaped on the surface and how much of it is hidden
to the naked eye.
 
The amount of water that is on Mars is negligible. The
polar caps of Mars contain some water but they are mixed
with frozen carbon dioxide and dust so the quantity of
water is not known. The permafrost underground is another
water supply. The colder the conditions of Mars then the
more chance of finding permafrost under the surface of
Mars. There are estimates that at the poles the permafrost
is well up to eight kilometres thick and lie just a few
centimetres below the surface. Near the equator the
permafrost is estimated to be up to, two to three
kilometres thick and just a few metres deep.
 
When a trip to Mars takes place and in the near future it
will many scientist, researchers and the people will be
excited to learn what the planet is like. There are many
fascinating things on Mars that still remain a mystery
today and a manned mission to Mars will help us unravel
these mysteries. 
 
Bibliography
 
Asimov, Isaac. MARS, The Red Planet. New York: Lothrop, Lee
and Shepard
 
Company. 1977
 
Asimov, Isaac. MARS: Our Mysterious Neighbor. Milwaukee:
Gareth Stevens
 
publishing. 1988
 
Simon, Seymour. MARS. New York: William Morrow and Company.
1987
 
Frank Miles and Nicholas Booth. Race to Mars. New York:
Harper
 
and Row publishers. 1988