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Future Space Exploration The Human Touch
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 12:33 pm ET
23 April 2001
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Mars or bust?
There is no need for a Mars-or-bust program of plopping humans on Mars, said Wesley Huntress, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
"An immediate sprint mission to Mars with a large step[-up] in NASA funding…is neither realistically affordable, nor in the best long-term interest of space exploration. We have ample evidence for that in the Apollo legacy," Huntress said.
Human servicing of spacecraft at libration points, like the Next Generation Space Telescope, would create a gateway for space travelers to reach the Moon, asteroids, and Mars.
Huntress advocates a gradual and systematic program to scatter human outposts throughout the inner solar system. The first outpost would be stationed at one of the Sun-Earth Lagrangian points (L2); the next on the Moon; then on select near-Earth asteroids; on to one of the two moons of Mars -- Phobos or Deimos; followed by a human outpost on the Red Planet itself.
There are destinations beyond Mars that may beckon us in future years, Huntress said. One such world is Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter that may support an ocean.
"If our robotic missions find an ocean below the ice on Europa, and if our aquabots find things swimming in the Europan ocean, then the temptation to send humans will be unbearable," Huntress said. "Right now we know of no way to shield humans from a swift death in the radiation environment of Europa, even inside a spacecraft, but perhaps they can be enclosed in a magnetically shielded cocoon of some kind until they are well underneath the natural ice shield of Europa’s surface," he said.
Move into space
Wherever the next 40 years of space exploration takes humanity, how best to deal with the stresses and strains of long-term spaceflight needs serious study, said Albert Harrison, a social psychologist at the University of California at Davis. For over four decades, little attention has been paid to psychological and interpersonal issues, he said.
In Harrison’s just published book, Spacefaring: The Human Dimension, he points out that conducting comprehensive psychological research about lengthy forays into space is critical.
"Psychological factors are crucial. You’ve got people living cooped up for months at a time, cut off from their homes and living under Spartan conditions," Harrison said. "Sure spacefarers are tough and capable, but we need to improve their living conditions, pay more attention to their professional and cultural diversity, and give them more control over their daily activities in space," he said.
Many forces are converging to encourage humans to move off our home planet, Harrison told SPACE.com. "But this does not mean that we are destined to move into space," he said.
We may live in a narrow window of time, Harrison said, when the resources, technology and practical knowledge to establish a continuing human presence in space are available.
"If we drop the ball it will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to recover," Harrison said. | | | |
