Enduring the Journey to Mars | MARS: How to Get to Mars

[Music] Human physiology doesn't adapt well to space, and things start failing in the body. The bones begin to leech out minerals that it thinks it doesn't need in a microgravity environment; it's got to be replaced. We're learning about problems in the eye and the vision. Your muscles sort of atrophy; your nose is congested; you feel like you've got a cold.

So, the physical challenge of getting to Mars is going to be fun, right? You've been in a zero-gravity environment for some 8 months, which is like being in bed for 8 months. Suddenly, you'll have this frenzy of fighting physics to slow down to land on the surface. Your coordination, your musculature, your cardiovascular system, your respiratory system—all of that is all of a sudden under a gravitational load. You actually have to keep working hard so that when you land on a surface like Mars, you can recover quickly and begin to [Music] work.

Radiation is a problem anywhere outside of a strong magnetic field. So, if you're on Earth, you're fine. If you're in low Earth orbit, like the International Space Station is, you're still fine. But if you're heading to Mars, now you've got a problem. Right now, there are two sources of radiation that we're going to have to deal with. One of them is called GCRs, which stands for Galactic Cosmic Rays. They're tiny little particles that are moving very, very fast, like, you know, approaching the speed of light kind of fast.

Yeah, they create radiation or solar radiation, and they're fast-moving particles, but they're not nearly so fast as the GCRs. The longer you spend exposed to that, the higher your cancer risk. We are, like, pre-programmed to be predisposed to hang out with other humans, so being very, very far away from civilization is scary to us. The loneliness of being uprooted not only from your world but from anyone who you're truly close to is probably a terrible thing.

There are a series of very dynamic events separated by long periods of nothing happening. Spacecraft is this monotonous gray and tan. I was wondering why NASA just used that kind of puky beige color for everything. They've got to stay together on a tiny spaceship for months and months, then hang out in a tiny habitat for months and months.

So, it's a form of human sacrifice, but not in a pointless way, but really in the service of something much greater.