There are several reasons why humanity needs to look for a new place to live. First, the Earth has limited resources, and their spending has increased significantly recently. Secondly, the ecological state of the Blue Planet is deteriorating every year, and perhaps soon it will cease to be habitable. Third, the Sun in five billion years will turn into a red giant and burn out the nearest planets. Therefore, scientists are already thinking about the "great migration", the time of which will inevitably come.
So the artist imagined the transformation of the sun into a red giant / Fotolia / sdecoret
The search for habitable planets, flight to them and development will take a lot of time. Humans have just begun to explore space and have already faced obstacles that can only be overcome with the help of science.
At the Science Festival at Moscow State University, a lecture by Skoltech Vice-Rector Rupert Herzer, Director of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German Aerospace Center, Professor and Chairman of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Aachen took place. The scientist spoke about the problems that have already arisen and may appear in people during space exploration.
Lunar outpost. NASA illustration
The dangers of space travel
Difficulties lie in wait for people on the way to the development of new habitats. The speed of space rockets seems to us enormous, but for cosmic distances it is quite small. For example, about 384 thousand kilometers from the Earth to the Moon, and the minimum distance of Mars from the Earth is 56 million kilometers! If you could go there in a Ferrari capable of accelerating to 300 kilometers per hour, you would have to spend 21 years behind the wheel. And if we could travel at the speed of light, then the journey to the Red Planet would take a little over three minutes.
Promotional video:
Lunar base
However, difficulties can begin not only during life on Mars or another planet, but also during space travel. And it is especially important that in space exploration, problems often arise that scientists did not even imagine.
For example, the onset of space fever. Temperature measurements of the cosmonauts showed that people who were at the station for more than six months, the constant body temperature increased by one, and for some, even by two or three degrees. If we imagine a systematic increase in temperature over several years, it becomes clear that the human body will not be able to live in such a thermal regime. The Skoltech professor noted that this could be a serious complication for long-term manned flights.
Besides, there are other factors of influence of weightlessness.
“Up to 60% of cosmonauts have faced ophthalmological problems after the flight. Magnetic resonance imaging of the eyeball showed a growth of connective tissue, “pushing” the fundus forward. A flattening appears on it, due to which the light is not fixed in the eye system. All nerves and blood vessels from the brain to the eye through the hole in the bone are pinched. This is probably due to an increase in intracranial pressure in space. NASA says this is the number one problem when traveling long distances in space, for example from Earth to Mars,”says Rupert Herzer.
An alternative home for a person
Let's say that you have successfully “landed” or “parted”. But the difficulties do not end there. We are earthlings. Accustomed to Earth's gravity, we need water and air with a certain oxygen content. Moreover, we are defenseless against radiation.
View of the Earth from the ISS
“Radiation is one of the obvious problems that await us on another planet, and even during the flight to it. On the space station, you get 300 times more sievert than on Earth. And if you lived on Mars, the dose would be even higher! It is difficult to predict exactly where this would result, since the types of radiation received on Earth, in space and on Mars are different. Astronauts have no higher cancer rates than other people, but only a few hundred people have been in space so far. It is difficult to collect statistics with such numbers,”says Rupert Herzer.
So, what are the challenges facing the space traveler at the moment? Protect yourself from radiation, provide an atmosphere suitable for breathing, and water and food. Interestingly, Mars and the Moon are far from the most promising places to live, according to the lecturer. He is considering the possibility that humans can live inside asteroids! There are many of them, they are scattered throughout outer space, and a thick rock layer can protect a person from cosmic radiation.
Although at the moment most of the research is devoted to plans for the development of Mars.
The concept of a colony on Mars through the eyes of an artist
So should we leave Earth?
Summing up, Rupert Herzer noted that there is no need to plan to leave Earth yet. It is necessary to protect it from external hazards (for example, asteroids), and from the destructive human impact on the ecology of the home planet. And continue to actively explore outer space, which is fraught with many new opportunities and dangers. The lecturer emphasized that space exploration is turning from pure science into a business, because you can make good money on space travel. And in the future, tourists will need not only transport, but also hotels, food, entertainment … As in a normal vacation. Only it will take place on the Moon or Mars.
Olga Kolentsova