What’s driving NASA to revisit the nuclear option? Likely, it is the renewed space race with Russia recently announcing plans to deploy a nuclear rocket option and China continuing to make progress with its space program. With either of these two space rivals, NASA does not want to be playing from behind. It already did that in the 1960s before the Apollo Program vaulted past the Soviet Union to achieve the Moon landing in 1969.

NASA Has a Nuclear Past and Present

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs)

NASA’s history with nuclear power for spacecraft has involved using RTGs and other thermoelectric nuclear power sources. RTGs use radioactive plutonium-238’s natural decay to generate thermoelectric power. The technology has been perfected over time, and it has proven to be very reliable.

Today, RTGs continue to power the two Voyager spacecraft that have long left the Solar System after touring the Ice Giants of the Outer Solar System. RTGs powered the two Viking spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976. These systems provided power for Galileo as it circled Jupiter, and Cassini during its multi-year mission to the Saturnian system. New Horizons, the spacecraft that visited Pluto and continues to explore the Kuiper belt, is powered by an RTG. Today, two RTG power plants keep Curiosity and Perseverance going on the Martian surface.

RTG technology, however, is not suitable to power a rocket. For that, NASA has looked to alternative technologies starting in the 1960s, up until now.

NERVA and DRACO

The 1960s saw NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission launch a project they called NERVA, a nuclear-thermal-propulsion (NTP) rocket using a solid-core fission reactor to heat hydrogen gas and expel at high speed through a nozzle. The project was cancelled not because it wouldn’t work, but rather because of budgetary concerns.

Its replacement, more recently, has been called DRACO, a demonstration nuclear rocket technology. DRACO also uses a fission reactor and hydrogen fuel. Until recently, it was the technology NASA intended for its first nuclear rocket. Now the project has been mothballed.

Space Reactor-1 (SR-1)

The new nuclear-powered rocket is called the SR-1 Freedom, with a mission plan to go to Mars. The SR-1 mission will carry the Skyfall payload to Mars. The Skyfall capsule will descend to the Martian surface by parachute and deploy three helicopters, built as successors to Ingenuity, the helicopter that accompanied the Perseverance rover and flew 72 missions for almost three years before rotor damage grounded it.

NASA describes the SR-1 as a nuclear-powered interplanetary tugboat. To meet a 2028 launch date, NASA intends to use the already-built Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) that was to be used by the now-defunct Lunar Gateway and modify it to integrate a 20+ KiloWatt nuclear fission reactor. Lunar Gateway was to be powered by solar panels. Repurposed for the SR-1, the reactor will generate electricity to power xenon plasma ion thrusters to provide thrust.

Where NERVA and DRACO converted power from their fission reactors to directly superheat hydrogen gas and expel it to achieve thrust, SR-1 will use a more indirect approach with the reactor generating electricity to feed ion thrusters, in other words, a NEP, a nuclear-electric propulsion system.

The timelines are tight. The Mars launch window is to have SR-1 ready for December 2028. Besides assembling the SR-1, which will involve the nuclear reactor, a power conversion system and the ion thrusters, the U.S. Department of Energy will have to provide nuclear certification.

SR-1 will take a year to get to Mars. So, this is not a high-speed option to be used by crewed missions to Mars in the future. Besides the increased mass and the need for shielding to protect the crew from cosmic rays, a variant of the SR-1 could be used. For example, a 100 to 500 KiloWatt fission reactor paired with a larger power conversion system and more ion thrusters could shorten transit times to 3 to 4 months. A successor to the SR-1 could include return propulsion systems to ensure a margin of safety for its crew.

What the SR-1 Freedom mission will do is be a proof of concept that should quickly render chemical rockets for long-duration missions beyond the Moon obsolete.

Are Fusion-Powered Rockets in Our Future?

Is it possible to see fusion-powered rockets in the next 30 years? Controlled fusion here on Earth is still going through birth pains. A commercial fusion reactor will likely be a reality within the next ten years. A direct fusion drive to power a rocket is another matter.

Why go there? Because nuclear fusion in space is far easier than doing it here on Earth, and because nuclear fusion engines would need only tiny amounts of fuel to generate the thrust needed to shorten a mission to Mars to 1 or 2 months, and to Pluto in less than 4 years. Fusion would be the king of propulsion technologies.

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On Earh, mudstone formations have been a good source for finding evidence of previous life. It clay-rich content seals organic remains to limit microbial decay. The organic remains mineralize producing fine details. In Earth’s Precambrian, mudstone deposits have been a key source of microfossils. The famous Burgess Shale fossils of the Cambrian explosion were laid down 500 million years ago and permanently preserved in both shale and mudstone. The two have similar qualities when it comes to preserving the fossil record.

Why? Both mudstone and shale are fine-grained. Both are laid down in water. Their clay-rich content buries and seals organic remains, limiting oxygen and microbial decay while promoting mineralization to preserve microscopic details.

Mudstone On Mars

Curiosity’s Discoveries

At Gale Crater on Mars, the NASA rover Curiosity, in 2013, discovered mudstone, confirming the theory that the crater once contained an ancient lake that lasted for millions of years. Curiosity continues to find mudstone deposits. Gale Crater apparently has lots.

In fact, the amounts of organic material seen in the rocks the rover has sampled far exceed deposits on Earth laid down by chemical non-inorganic processes. In March last year, the Curiosity team announced the discovery of quantities of decane, undecane, and dodecane molecules in rock samples analyzed by the rover. These three are the largest organic hydrocarbons identified on Mars to date. They appear to be fragments of fatty acids preserved in mudstone.

What do fatty acid remains on Mars tell us? Here on Earth, living cells contain cell membranes formed from fatty acids. Although similar molecules can be formed without life present here on Earth, these conditions are rarer.

At Jezero Crater, the Perseverance rover has been making similar discoveries, almost from the moment it touched down on the Martian surface in 2021. The mudstone it has found contains carbon and organic molecules with features and textures resembling leopard spots. These spots, when analyzed by Perseverance’s onboard instrumentation, indicate the presence of carbon, silica, aluminum and iron.

The majority of scientists who have assessed the Perseverance data to date opine that these carbon organics, with their associated minerals, indicate microbial processes in sediments similar to those found here on Earth.

The astrobiological potential for these leopard spots is considered high. NASA, however, as it did with the two Viking lander experiments in 1976, continues to err on the side of caution, suggesting that without the samples back here on Earth to test, abiotic processes cannot be ruled out.

Reconstructing Mars In The Past

When did these mudstones form?

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M-MATISSE is a mission that may help us understand Martian weather once and for all. The name is an acronym for the Mars Magnetospheric Atmospheric Ionosphere and Space Weather Science mission. The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing two orbiters to send to Mars. On the University of Leicester site, the mission description states that its goal is to understand the complex and dynamic relationships involving the Martian magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere with the solar wind and the lower atmosphere. The coupled satellites will make simultaneous observations of the Martian system, providing a global picture of the planet’s weather at all altitudes. Named Henri and Marguerite, derived from the artist Henri Matisse and his daughter, a final decision to go ahead with the mission will be made by mid-2026.

The mission should reveal how the solar wind influences Martian weather, which will be key to understanding future habitability of the planet.

Venus is Earth’s twin in size, but that’s where the similarities end. Its atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide (CO2) and 3.5% nitrogen. There are also traces of argon, water vapour, sulphur dioxide and other gases. The thick clouds of Venus contain sulphuric acid rain that never reaches the surface. The planet’s surface temperature is 462 Celsius (864 Fahrenheit), hot enough to melt lead. It is the hottest planet in the Solar System. The thick atmosphere produces surface pressures 90 times that of Earth at sea level, equivalent to being 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) below the ocean surface. The clouds reflect 90% of sunlight back into space. The planet is best described as a runaway greenhouse that is a living hell, except nothing can live on its surface.

Some scientists have speculated that although life as we know it could never survive on the surface of Venus, the atmosphere is another story. In 2020, researchers studying Venus discovered phosphine gas in the planet’s clouds, described as being in the habitable region of its atmosphere.

What is the significance of phosphine? On Earth, phosphine is linked to anaerobic bacteria. These are extremophiles that live and metabolize in environments lacking oxygen. It also is present in the gut, in marshes, and in places where there is organic decomposition.

So, what could be causing phosphine on Venus? Clara Sousa-Silva, a researcher at MIT in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, expressed her amazement at this discovery, trying along with other astronomers to come up with an exotic chemistry that could produce phosphine in the absence of life.

In a September 2020 paper published in Nature Astronomy, it stated there is “no currently known abiotic production routes” to create phosphine gas in observable amounts in Venus’ atmosphere. The researchers looked at different scenarios such as sunlight, surface minerals, volcanic activity, meteor strikes and lightning and modelled them, but none produced phosphine in the amounts observed. Janus Petkowski, who was one of the researchers working with Sousa-Silva, noted, “If this is not life, then our understanding of rocky planets is severely lacking.”

Since the 2020 discovery, astronomers have detected the presence of ammonia in addition to phosphine. Ammonia, like phosphine, is a byproduct of living organisms (as well as industrial processes, which we can rule out as being a source on Venus). The ammonia has been found in the clouds, which increasingly are being considered as potential areas where we may find alien life.

How is this even possible? Although the temperatures on the surface of Venus can melt lead, 50 kilometres (31 miles) above the planet’s surface, temperatures range from 30 to 70 Celsius (86 to 158 Fahrenheit). Atmospheric pressures at that elevation are equivalent to what we experience here on Earth at sea level.

To study what is causing these gases to exist in the atmosphere of Venus, British scientists are proposing a space mission to the planet which could be launched as early as 2031 and propose building a CubeSat-sized probe that would accompany EnVision, an ESA-planned mission to be launched that same year.

Will we discover life on Venus before we find it on Mars? Although M-MATISSE isn’t looking for evidence of current or past life, current NASA rovers are busily doing that task with Perseverance having gathered samples for a future return mission to Earth scheduled for sometime during the 2030s. Meanwhile, the EnVision CubeSat could beat Martian efforts to discover life elsewhere early in the 2030s well before any Martian samples are returned or humans land on Mars.

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Where rocketeers like Elon Musk see engineering as the key to human survival in space and places like Mars, McKee argues that these traditional technology approaches require humanity to forever live in bubbles or, in the case of Mars, domed habitats where Earth-like environments are replicated.

Here on Earth, we are already familiar with genetic engineering. Before we started messing with genes, we were engineering new species through selective breeding. Now we are doing it at the cellular level using tools like CRISPR Cas9. We even have the tools to do gene sequencing in space. MinION is a technology developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies which has allowed astronauts on the International Space Station to sequence the genomes of microorganisms using a handheld device.

Having mapped the human genome and developed tools to reconstruct it, we now have the means to change ourselves to better fit the places where we want to go. That’s what synthetic biology will help us do, a technology that British biologist Jamie A. Davies calls “the creation of new living systems by design.” Creationists must be rolling over in their graves.

Why will synthetic biology be key to making it possible for humanity to fulfil what John Wyndham, in one of his science fiction novels, labelled the Outward Urge? In Wyndham’s book, he outlines a series of steps as humanity first builds a space station, establishes settlements on the Moon, lands on Mars, and initiates human exploration of Venus. Except for the last evolutionary step, Wyndham appears to have drawn the route map by which NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are navigating.

Today, we do not know if there are Martians. If they have existed and still do, they are likely microorganisms that arose four billion years ago in the planet’s past and have survived its changes to become the dry, cold desert that it is today. Whatever we do on Mars, if Martians exist, we need to protect them before we start messing with the planet, as some advocate.

Terraforming Mars for Earth life is the dream of many science fiction writers. Terraforming involves introducing synthetic microorganisms to alter the planet to make it habitable for Earth life.

Other than finding a way to turn an inhospitable environment into one that is habitable, why would humans choose synthetic biology as the primary tool?

One good reason is to make it cheaper to exploit and inhabit the planet. The SpaceX plan to colonize Mars involves hundreds of Starships hauling freight between Earth and Mars over the next several decades. The cost of such an effort would make the Apollo Program budget from the 1960s look like a rounding accounting error.

Another reason is that, rather than attempting to rapidly alter an entire planet (let’s not talk about the two variables: time and cost), creating synthetic organisms and even re-engineering ourselves would be a far easier means to an end.

Change Mars Or Change Us

Humans are poorly adapted for living “off-world.” Our biological systems take a beating in space. Just ask the astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts about what happens when exposed to microgravity, low gravity, extreme radiation and more during and after their time onboard low-Earth orbiting space stations.

After we know what, if anything, is still alive on Mars, we could consider introducing microbes designed to change the planet. These microbes would be synthetic and built for specific tasks. One could be designed to produce oxygen and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). Another could fix nitrogen and remove perchlorate in the soil. Any microbes we engineer would have to withstand cosmic and solar radiation. They would be capable of thriving in lower amounts of sunlight, and like extremophiles and psychrophiles here on Earth, propagate in toxic and extreme cold conditions.

Once conditions were more Earth-like, synthetic biology could re-engineer the familiar plant staples that feed our planet. Terraforming would create conditions where re-engineered plants could survive on the planet’s surface. Once plants are thriving on Mars, the atmosphere will thicken and become more Earth-like. A greenhouse effect would begin to transform the planet.

How long would this terraforming experiment last before Mars became a second Earth? Estimates vary between two centuries to millennia.

On the other hand, using synthetic biology and genetic engineering could turn homo sapiens into homo sapiens martianus or just homo martianus.

Homo martianus would have re-engineered genetics to deal with the low gravity of Mars (38% of Earth’s gravity). Gravity on Earth impacts bone density and muscles. An enhanced LRP5 gene could make our bones better suited to life on Mars.

To deal with the low oxygen environment of Mars, we would enhance genes that make homo martianus efficiently use oxygen in similar ways to how Tibetans and Andeans do in high altitude conditions on Earth.

To cope with radiation, genes like p53 that suppress cancerous tumours could be enhanced.

We could consider inserting genes from extremophiles and psychrophiles to make homo martianus comfortable with Martian realities.

We could alter human metabolism so that homo martianus would require less food and water to thrive.

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Wordsworth has modelled early Mars as well as studied the current state of the planet, noting that increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and other greenhouse gases, a greenhouse effect could be renewed.

Such a project would require considerable geoengineering sleight of hand. One way this could be accomplished would involve placing highly reflective satellites in orbit to target sunlight on Mars’ polar ice caps. The Martian ice caps contain frozen CO2 and water. Gasification of the CO2 would increase atmospheric density and air pressure and create the beginnings of a greenhouse effect. The initial warming would help to melt water elsewhere on Mars, just beneath the surface. This would add water vapour, a potent greenhouse gas,  to the atmosphere and stimulate a Martian water cycle.

Wordsworth describes the habitability project as possible first in the equatorial regions of the planet. He notes that Martian soil could be remediated by removing perchlorate using bioengineered bacteria, which would thrive in the CO2 atmosphere. Perchlorate has been detected in Martian soils since the first Viking landers in 1976. Get the perchlorate out, and plants can begin to grow in Martian soils. We are already demonstrating that feasibility here on Earth in experiments that simulate Martian conditions. As plants do their thing in the soil of the Red Planet, they will expel oxygen and further alter the Martian atmosphere. These first plants would grow in sealed domes, greenhouse oases, that might eventually be future homes for humans and other Earth life colonists. How long would this Martian makeover take? Wordsworth estimates no more than two Earth centuries.

It sounds like science fiction. Could it become a reality? Wordsworth has his backers in people like SpaceX’s Elon Musk, President Donald Trump, and the soon-to-be confirmed new head of NASA, Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut who has funded and flown two missions into near-Earth orbit. If it were to happen, however, reliably getting to and from Mars, delivering sufficient payloads of materials and robots would be essential.

In the heady days after Trump was elected to his second term, SpaceX and some at NASA started talking about optimal launch to Mars in 2026 and 2028. SpaceX announced ambitions to send several Starships to the Red Planet and begin using Martian local resources (in-situ resource utilization or ISRU) to prepare the planet for its first human colonists by 2030.

Based on the latest Starship launch failure this week, it is increasingly difficult to believe that these plans are no more than a pipe dream. SpaceX has yet to prove the Starship technology can fly to orbit and do it repeatedly. The first booster reuse failed, and the Starship that would be the vehicle to go to and from Mars also blew up shortly after reaching low-Earth orbit. Nobody is going to Mars, let alone the Moon, on SpaceX technology based on the company’s present performance.

Trump has talked about American astronauts on Mars by the early 2030s. He has waxed about the 2030s as being the pivotal decade for space ambitions rivalling those in the 1960s, with the race to the Moon. The current trajectory of American technology for humans going to Mars, however, is far from perfected. The Starship failure has put even the lesser ambition of the Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon in 2027 in jeopardy, because the first Human Landing System (HLS) to take crews to the surface is based on Starship, so far, an unreliable choice.

Meanwhile, NASA continues to work on assembling the Space Launch System (SLS), the successor rocket to the Saturn V, and the Orion capsule, the successor to Apollo, with the Artemis II circumlunar mission scheduled for sometime in 2026. That mission doesn’t land on the Moon, so the lack of the HLS is not an issue. The HLS, however, will need to be a proven landing platform before the 2027 planned Artemis III landing on the Moon. If not, NASA will have to consider contingency plans, possibly using Blue Origin’s lander under development, or move the mission date to later in the decade.

In any case, NASA hanging its hat on SpaceX technology is making flying to Mars a pipe dream for now. The Wordsworth terraforming cannot begin without a proper means of reliable transit between the two planets.  Getting to Mars with SpaceX won’t happen without dramatic improvements to the latter’s technology, and we are halfway through this decade, which means the timelines are starting to look very iffy.

I don’t know why NASA isn’t fast-tracking nuclear rocket propulsion instead. To me, the chemical rocket route has too many challenges when talking about missions to and from Mars. Several nuclear options can be developed that would be better than relying on the chemical rockets that began the Space Age. Nuclear rockets would also make it to Mars much faster, cutting down transit time between the two worlds by more than half.

That’s why people on Mars by 2030 and an established American presence on the Red Planet sometime in the 2030s based on SpaceX technology and NASA systems like the SLS and Orion are no more than a Trump-Musk fantasy.

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Why The NASA Artemis Program Or Not

Before considering sending humans to Mars, NASA decided a return to the Moon would be a testbed for developing the technologies needed to get to Mars. The Artemis Program was seen as a stepping stone. Numerous delays have beset Artemis, however, from the beginning.

It required NASA to rebuild its integrated launch system technology that it formerly used for the Apollo Program. The result is the Space Launch System (SLS), a throwaway behemoth of a rocket that bears a resemblance to the Saturn V of the Apollo Program. The same is true of the Orion spaceship, a larger version of the Apollo space capsule.

In the first test of the technology, the Artemis I mission, an early version of the SLS was used to launch Orion beyond the Moon before it returned to an ocean landing on Earth. Examination of the spaceship indicated unexpected heat shield pitting requiring re-engineering that has delayed Artemis II by two years. The escalating mission costs of the entire program will reach $93 billion by the end of 2025.

When Artemis III returns astronauts to the Moon’s surface sometime in 2027, saner heads at the Agency may finally intervene to consider going to cheaper competing technologies from commercial operators. The solutions for subsequent Moon voyages may lie with NASA’s current commercial partners like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Both are already contracted to build Moon landers. Both have powerful reusable rocket technology that could end the need for the SLS.

In Part 1, we described the Mars agenda for SpaceX. The Starship is being designed for interplanetary travel. It is reconfigurable as the upcoming HLS version will show. The HLS will land on the Moon where there is no atmosphere. Starships have already landed on Earth in test flights. When SpaceX sends several Starships to Mars as it intends in the next few years, handling landings on the Red Planet should become feasible and eventually routine. But none of this answers the question of how safe the journey will be when humans fly to Mars and stay on its surface for protracted lengths.

Why Mars Sample Return Is Still Relevant Or Not

Speaking of the Martian surface, when Perseverance was conceived, one of its tasks in exploring the Jezzero Crater was to dig up and scrape samples for future scientific examination. In a recent news release, a NASA spokesperson described the science of these samples as ground-breaking. Right now, however, they are packed in vials lying on the surface where Perseverance left them waiting to be picked up.

That was the purpose of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, to gather those samples and bring them back to Earth in 2033. The technology to do this was developed in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). MSR project costs skyrocketed so NASA decided to delay the project and seek a less expensive way to get the Perseverance samples back.

The two options NASA is currently considering include:

• A lander collector and launcher using a version of the sky-crane landing technology used to put Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars. ESA would still send its orbiter and a lander as originally planned with the earliest return date between 2035 and 2039.
• Using landers such as those for the Artemis III and V missions, this option would deliver rovers and helicopters as payload and use them to gather the Perseverance samples to return to Earth probably within the same timelines.

For both cases, if NASA sticks to a crewed mission happening in 2035, MSR’s samples may become redundant, or if the crewed mission lands near the Jezzero Crater site, the astronauts could pick up the samples themselves.

Planetary Alignments Present Mars Flight Complications

Favourable launch windows determine when to send missions to Mars. How do you calculate these? The mathematics of two objects moving around the Sun at different speeds and on different trajectories determines when is the best time to launch.

It turns out to be approximately every 26 Earth months when everything aligns. This happens because while Earth orbits the Sun every 365.25 days, Mars orbits it every 1.9 Earth years. That means a spacecraft launched from Earth has to target a location where Mars will be and not where it is at the time of launch. The launch window periodic alignment allows for a direct trajectory.

Perseverance was launched in 2020 and took a direct trajectory to Mars. Its trip took 204 Earth days with an initial launch speed of just under 40,000 kilometres per hour (24,600 miles per hour) and after an interplanetary insertion burn an average cruising speed of 100,260 kph (62,300 mph) over the 470 million kilometres (292 million miles) trip.

NASA’s Odyssey or SpaceX’s Starship could duplicate the Perseverance fast trajectory. NASA, however, doesn’t plan for human spaceflight to Mars using the Perseverance voyage model. Instead, it plans for voyages lasting nine months and stays on the surface between 90 and 500 days to align favourable launch periods to return to Earth.

Think about the burden of onboard resources missions of this duration require lasting well over three Earth years. This isn’t a three-day journey to the Moon and a two-week stay before coming home. But doing the Moon could be good preparation for the leap to Mars although some say not.

Going Back To The Moon – Been There, Done That 

The Apollo Program made six voyages of discovery to the Moon. Do we need to go back? Ask Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, and he will say no. He thinks the current Artemis Program is largely misdirection. Musk sees getting to Mars as essential to make humans an interplanetary species. Is he right?

Does the U.S. need to be spending $93 billion by the end of this year chasing a return to the Moon? Musk doesn’t think so and the new Trump-nominated NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, may agree.

I disagree with Musk but for other reasons. I have issues with the entire human space program going to places with deep gravity wells rather than building a space infrastructure of free-floating colonies using materials mined from captured or visited asteroids. This is a strategy that eliminates the burden of dealing with launch thrust requirements to escape bodies like Mars.

But since we are going down the route of making celestial bodies our destinations for the foreseeable space future, then the Moon appears to be the perfect place to test the technologies we need. The Moon as a test bed is only three days from Earth. If something goes wrong on Mars, without self-sufficiency, there is no nearby remedy.

To Make Mars Possible This Is What We Need

Several key technologies need to be perfected to make living on the Moon viable. Lunar solutions will not be enough for Mars. The journey from the Earth to the Moon is a puddle jump compared to the one to Mars.

Protecting a crew from space threats over three days isn’t the same as keeping them healthy and alive for a six to nine-month voyage.

What are the technologies that need to be developed or perfected for the Martian project? Here are the ones that immediately come to mind:

1. Life Support Systems – The technologies needed to sustain a crew for the duration of a mission include regenerating breathable air, onboard food production, managing waste and providing the means to handle medical emergencies. The International Space Station (ISS) is the current test bed for developing life support systems including onboard food production. See a previous posting I published here entitled, “The Biggest Impediment to Humans Going to Mars is Food Not Whether SpaceX’s Starship Can Fly.”
2. Radiation Protection – A voyage to and from Mars and a prolonged stay will expose the crew to cosmic radiation levels unlike any the Apolo astronauts endured. For that reason, NASA has been developing an Advanced Radiation Protection (ARP) program looking at different materials and electromagnetic field technologies to protect humans on interplanetary flights, spacewalks, and forays outside on Mars. NASA is researching wearable radiation shielding. It is looking at biological methods of radiation protection involving screening crew members to determine ways to boost their immune system responses to radiation exposure. On the ISS NASA is even experimenting with radiotrophic fungi which can be grown and worn to become a self-regenerating biological radiation shield.
3. Lower Fuel Payloads and Alternative Propulsion Systems – Relying on chemical propulsion makes getting to Mars far more onerous. NASA has researched alternative propulsion technologies such as nuclear and ion propulsion. The former was first pioneered during the NERVA program in the 1970s. Now NASA is revisiting the nuclear option. At the same time, NASA is perfecting ion propulsion which it has used for many scientific missions. Both options have an advantage over chemical rockets. Both, however, can be ignited only after a chemical-powered rocket booster has successfully launched its payload into orbit. After that, the spaceship requires a much smaller fuel payload for interplanetary transit. To learn more read, “Why the Nuclear Option is a Necessity if Humans Are Ever Going to Get to Mars and Return Alive.”
4. In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Systems – Chemical propulsion technology is needed to escape the gravity wells of celestial bodies. Carrying the extra payload burden of these chemicals is unfeasible for travelling to and from Mars. Once the spaceship has landed, however, the mission needs to replenish its stores. That’s why NASA has been developing technologies to produce methane and oxygen on Mars. Perseverance has MOXIE on board and demonstrated it can harvest oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. Other NASA projects here on Earth are working with bacteria to biologically manufacture propellant from carbon dioxide combined with sunlight and water to make propellant chemicals. This is a technology that can work on Mars. NASA estimates it will need 7 tons of liquid methane and 22 tons of liquid oxygen produced over 18 Earth months using ISRU to meet surface needs and return launch requirements. Ideally, the equipment can be delivered to start producing the needed chemicals before any humans land on the planet.
5. Artificial Intelligence Algorithms and Robot Deployment – The explosion in AI development here on Earth bodes well for future systems to be incorporated into a voyage to Mars. AI can take on the burden of managing the navigation and ship operations of a long interplanetary voyage. I’m not talking about HAL, the AI system used by Discovery in Arthur Clarke’s novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The AI systems along with smart sensors would help with navigation, spaceship maintenance, and emergency scenarios that occur along the way. Using AI this way is critical for a mission to Mars where communication with Earth will suffer from 4 to 22-minute delays and potential blackouts.
6. Upgraded Communication Systems – The distance between Earth and Mars alters substantially throughout a six to nine-month voyage. Communication and data exchanges, therefore, require more robust technology than radio frequency used by NASA in its current human space program. For the trip to Mars, the signal delay maximum of 22 minutes is not the sole challenge. Solar conjunctions when the Sun is between the Earth and Mars, will cause communication blackouts every 26 months that will last for two Earth weeks. To address these challenges NASA and ESA are developing laser-based, high-bandwidth communication to provide faster data and voice transmissions. The High-Rate Delay Tolerant Network (HDTN) is another NASA system designed to address signal disruptions. SpaceX has a proposal to duplicate the Starlink constellation around Earth called Marslink. An advanced relay network of satellites between Earth and Mars would be a useful addition to facilitate better communications between the two planets to reduce blackouts.

So there you have it! There’s a lot of homework between now and those targeted dates mentioned in Part 1. Keeping all the irons in the fire for the duration and raising funds from public and private sources will be critical to making the interplanetary dream come true.

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As the return of humans to the Moon’s surface is pushed back further in this decade, timelines on NASA projects are beginning to make little sense. Three that immediately come to mind are:

1. The Mars Sample Return (MSR) Mission
2. The Artemis Program Return to the Moon
3. The Mission to Land Humans on Mars

Here are NASA’s current estimated timelines:

For the Moon:

2026 Artemis II will circumnavigate the Moon. This mission was originally planned for 2024 but now is delayed.

2027 Artemis III will land astronauts on the Moon. The mission involves the Space Launch System (SLS) as the booster mated to the Orion capsule which will voyage to lunar rendezvous with a SpaceX-modified Starship called the HLS. The astronauts will transfer to the HLS to descend to the lunar surface and then return to Orion for the voyage back to Earth. The HLS will remain parked in lunar orbit for the next Artemis mission.

2028 Artemis IV adds another NASA build, the Lunar Gateway, a mini-space station that will serve as temporary quarters for astronauts and a docking station for future lunar missions. SpaceX’s HLS will dock with the Gateway once it is in orbit. The crew of Orion will transfer through the Gateway to the HLS and descend to the lunar surface.

2030 Artemis V will be a repeat performance with likely a longer stay on the lunar surface to begin establishing the infrastructure for a permanent lunar habitat.

2031 Artemis VI will be a repeat with additional infrastructure put in place for a habitat that can be continually occupied.

For Mars:

2033 The Perseverance rover has been collecting samples that NASA wants to bring back to Earth for study. This was to be the original MSR mission date which because of budget constraints is being reworked with two alternative options under consideration and, as a result, an altered timeline.

2035-38 NASA’s long-announced planned date for a three-year plus crewed expedition going to and returning from Mars. The proposed stay varies, from 90 to 500 Earth days based on a favourable window for return.

2040 This is the MSR date based on two revised mission plans currently under consideration. There is still value in Perseverance samples since they have been collected from the Jezzero Crater with its many features indicating it was once a watery place. The MSR collection may arrive later than returning astronauts with samples they bring back.

Commercial Space Operators Have Plans

Several commercial partners have worked with NASA since the Agency was first established. Boeing is the prime contractor for the SLS. Lockheed Martin is the prime for the Orion capsule. The European Space Agency (ESA) and its commercial contractors have built the European Space Module (ESM) attached to Orion. The ESM provides Orion with its primary propulsion systems, solar panels for power and life support systems for the crew.

Three space partners have built rocket systems of their own. These include the United Launch Alliance (ULA is a Boeing Lockheed Martin partnership), SpaceX and Blue Origin.

One of the ULA partners, Boeing, has built the Starliner, a space taxi designed to deliver crews to the International Space Station (ISS). It has problems.

SpaceX has developed the Dragon spacecraft as an ISS taxi and for other uses. An extended version of it will be used to de-orbit the ISS after 2030.

The third space partner is Blue Origin whose BE-4 engines power ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Its New Shepard suborbital rocket has had several successful crewed flights to the edge of space. It recently launched the New Glenn rocket designed to deliver payloads to orbit, the Moon, and beyond.

Boeing, a ULA partner, is currently the prime contractor for the SLS, the Artemis launch vehicle.

Founded by Elon Musk, SpaceX’s mission has from the outset been about making humans a multi-planetary species.

Blue Origin wants to make the Moon and the orbiting spaces above Earth the manufacturing hub of Earth while turning the planet into a green oasis.

SpaceX and Blue Origin both are involved in contracts with NASA. They also have their plans for the Moon and Mars. Here are the timelines.

For the Moon:

2027 NASA has contracted SpaceX to deliver a version of its Starship, the Human Landing System (HLS) for use in the Artemis III and IV lunar missions.

2030 NASA has contracted Blue Origin to deliver the Blue Moon Landing System for the Artemis V lunar mission.

2033 Blue Origin plans to land a lunar habitat on the Moon to establish a permanent human presence there. Who will be its occupants?

For Mars:

2026 SpaceX plans repeated Starship tests through 2025 to prove the design is reliable. When successful, SpaceX plans to launch 5 unmanned missions to Mars to demonstrate interplanetary transit and landing capability.

2028 – 29 During the next optimal Earth-Mars transit window, SpaceX plans to send a Starship with a human crew aboard to land on Mars. This would beat NASA’s plans by six years. If delayed, the mission would move to 2031-32. If the plan is to stay on Mars only for the duration of the same transit window, the expedition would visit for no more than 30 Earth days (A Martian day is approximately 30 minutes longer than an Earth day).

2040 – 50 Although SpaceX doesn’t mention details after its first successful Martian landing and return, it is likely crewed missions will follow throughout the 2030s spaced out every 24 to 26 months. The eventual goal is to deliver the tools, equipment and people to establish a permanent self-sustaining settlement by mid-century, and a city of a million by 2100.

What Is Not Reflected in These Plans

The new Trump administration has nominated private astronaut, Jared Isaacman, to be NASA’s new administrator. Isaacman has led two private space missions using SpaceX systems and may favour using Starships to return astronauts to the Moon. He could cancel the SLS, Orion and the Lunar Gateway which would save the Agency billions of dollars. The timelines may alter as well if Starship becomes a proven and reliable technology for going to and from the Moon and then taking NASA astronauts to Mars.

The other factor not mentioned is a potential revival of the Space Race of the 1960s between the United States and the Soviet Union. After NASA landed astronauts on the Moon in 1969, a period of space cooperation began which remains to this day with Russia, the Soviet Union’s successor, a partner on the International Space Station. Elsewhere, Russia has its plans for the Moon which may include a partnership with China to establish a permanent lunar colony.

The next race for the U.S. to claim the high ground of space is no longer with the Russians. It is now with the Chinese. China has plans to put taikonauts on the Moon and eventually Mars. The Russians have their plans to put cosmonauts on the Moon. Together they can combine resources to overcome the deficiencies each has in their current space programs.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has unveiled plans for a future lunar habitat by the end of this decade or in the early 2030s. China has a stated goal to be the dominant space country by 2050. Does that mean a permanent Chinese presence on the Moon and Mars? On the former, certainly. On the latter, not necessarily.

So there you have it. NASA and its partners have space ambitions. SpaceX is jockeying to get to Mars. Blue Origin wants to dominate the space between the Moon and Earth and change the world. NASA’s Isaacman has a challenge to make all of these various ambitions work together while saving money for the Agency, freeing up the program for scientific space exploration.

What’s left to be said? I will tell you in Part 2 where I describe some of the complexities of humans travelling through space to the Moon and Mars, and what solutions and inventions are needed to meet some of the remaining challenges for all of the above to succeed.

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It appears that water is common throughout our Solar System and likely by conjecture, elsewhere in the Milky Way and other galaxies. How much of that water is liquid is another story. Telltale signs of liquid water can be seen in geysers erupting from the surface of Europa and Enceladus. On Mars during seasonal changes observed by orbiters, streaks often appear on cliffsides that look like water seeping from below the surface and then heading downhill before evaporating.

The Perseverance and Curiosity Martian rovers continue to explore what appear to be previously habitable environments where surface water flowed several billion years ago in the early history of the red planet. Even the red, oxidized surface colouration of Mars indicates a past where liquid water was present.

A recent discovery by Perseverance may show preserved life that existed there billions of years ago. Where life exists on Earth, there is water. That’s why looking for water beyond our planet is seen as the most likely place to find alien life.

A quick look at the latest two off-Earth water discoveries follows.

The Martian Interior Underground Liquid Water Reserve

More than once has water been found under the surface of Mars. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) on the ESA orbiter, Mars Express, collected data from 2012 to 2015 that indicated a lake of liquid water 1.5 kilometres (less than a mile) beneath the planet’s south polar ice cap.

Now we can add a second source of water found beneath the planet’s by NASA’s Insight. The lander collected data from seismic readings over four years from 2018 to 2022 using an onboard seismometer before it was retired. It detected a large underground reservoir of liquid water between 11.5 and 20 kilometres (7.1 to 12.4 miles) below the surface (see the image below with a cutout of the Martian interior. NASA estimates that the amount of water found could cover Mars with an ocean between 1 and 2 kilometres (0.6 to 1.2 miles) deep.

I can hear those in the fossil fuel industry yelling “Drill baby drill” to bring this underground reservoir of water to the surface to help terraform the planet. Drilling for water on Mars, however, may not be as easy as on Earth. Rigs need to be adapted for transportation to the planet and in-situ assembly. Martian subsurface stratigraphy may pose unknown challenges to existing drilling technology. Any deployed rigs would have to operate autonomously. Then there is the concern that by tapping this subterranean water reservoir we may be destroying Martian life. A brief report published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) describes the findings coming from studying four years of Insight seismic data. The liquid water is contained within highly porous fractured igneous rocks and may represent only a small volume of the total volume to be found under the Martian surface. In the paper, the authors speculate that what was found beneath Insight “may be global.”

Ariel Evidence Suggests A Subsurface Ocean

The Astrophysical Journal Letters published an article that indicates Ariel may be the next candidate ocean world to be found in the Outer Solar System, joining a sister moon, Miranda, as well as Jupiter’s Europa, and Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan. Ariel is one of the 28 known moons that circle Uranus and is its fourth largest, discovered in 1851.

Ariel’s surface material is composed of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) ice. States Richard Cartwright from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, heading up a research time that has been studying Ariel, the CO “shouldn’t be there” considering the temperature variations the moon undergoes. Cartwright states that Ariel isn’t cold enough for CO to remain stable on the surface. It should be disappearing but instead persists which likely points to a subsurface source that continues to replenish it.

We don’t know a lot about Ariel. Our first good look came with the Voyager 2 flyby almost 40 years ago. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is filling in our knowledge gaps and has allowed the Johns Hopkins researchers to study Ariel’s surface composition of CO2  and CO ices as well as carbonate minerals. The latter two’s presence suggests a subsurface liquid water source.

Ariel’s icy surface (see image below) appears to have the right topography with many canyons and fissures where a subsurface ocean could be leaking contents to the surface in geyserlike plumes like the phenomenon observed on Europa and Enceladus.

From Voyager 2 we only saw the side Ariel presents to Uranus. It is the far side perpetually facing away that needs study. That’s where Ariel’s issues and scars may be the main source of the CO2 and CO ice and carbonate minerals. The Johns Hopkins team believe both Ariel and Miranda, a sister Uranian moon, are emitting plumes indicating water worlds lie beneath. The researchers are advocating for a future spacecraft like Cassini to be sent to do a multi-decade study of the Uranian system and its ocean-world moons.

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The problem is simple. Mars is inhospitable to human life. The only way we can survive on that planet is to live in bubbles or below ground. The journey taken by human colonists will be fraught with danger. Exposure to cosmic rays over the long voyage between Earth and the Red Planet may result in high levels of cancer in those who survive the trip. Then there is the need to create a self-sustaining closed system with enough food, water, essential material resources and infrastructure to allow a colony to establish itself.

Always remember when we are talking about Mars, the environment is harsher than Antarctica with no breathable air.

Enter Syntrichia Caninervis

S. Caninervis is a moss that grows in Tibet and Antarctica. Bringing it to Mars and planting it there would be an interesting terraforming experiment. S. Caninervis is a photoautotroph. It would convert light from the more distant Sun into organic compounds allowing it to reproduce. It has high-stress tolerances and can thrive in high altitudes with similar air pressure conditions to that found on the Martian surface. It can live in an atmosphere composed largely of carbon dioxide. And it can withstand radiation levels equal to that which would occur on the Martian surface.

If there is any living thing on Earth that can make the transition to a Martian environment it is S. Caninervis. In a recent experiment, scientists subjected it to a simulated Mars environment. The moss survived over five years at temperatures of -80 Celsius (-112 Fahrenheit). Nighttime temperatures on Mars drop to as low as -60 Celsius (-76 Fahrenheit) at the equator while daytime temperatures can be as high as 27 Celsius (80 Fahrenheit). In equatorial regions of Mars, therefore, S. Caninervis could handle the planet’s temperature extremes.

But what about at the Martian poles? To simulate those conditions the experiment used liquid nitrogen exposure with temperatures at -195.8 Celsius (-320.44 Fahrenheit). This exceeds the daytime highs of -55 Celsius (-67 Fahrenheit) and lows of -130 Celsius (-202 Fahrenheit) found in the planet’s polar regions. Under extreme liquid nitrogen exposure for a month, the moss survived. Here too, it would handle the Martian environment.

How does S. Caninervis do it? It is called “drying without dying.” When stressed the moss becomes dormant. Its physical structure conserves water and provides photoprotection from ultraviolet radiation. Even when completely dehydrated it maintains large amounts of sucrose and maltose to serve as osmotic agents and help stabilize it over long dormant periods. Then when conditions improve, it awakes and starts to grow again.

Do We Want to Terraform Mars?

Humans could survive on Mars without altering the planet’s ecology should native life exist there. We don’t have to introduce Earth extremophiles if we don’t want to.

The two current active NASA rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, have been sent to Mars to find conditions suitable for life in the past and present. The geological record indicates the planet had a warmer and wetter phase with ample surface water lasting for millions of years.  Here on Earth, water is where life began.

The Mars of the present, however, can only briefly support water on its surface in the near vacuum-like atmosphere. If life existed in the past there, its survivors would likely be extremophiles like S. Caninervis.

The suggestion and experiments by scientists looking at terraforming note that by introducing Earth life we may destroy any native surviving Martian extremophiles. If S. Caninervis flourishes it will alter the Martian atmosphere by adding oxygen. It will also sequester carbon in the regolith, changing soil conditions and making it possible to introduce other Earth-candidate species.

Should we be concerned about what this can potentially do to existing Martian life even if only microscopic? Yes. If we are to do the great terraforming experiment, will it be possible to create conservation areas for native Martian species so that they can be studied and continue to exist?

We consider the emergence of life here on Earth to be a rare event in The Universe. If so rare, we should then consider life found elsewhere to be rare and subject to the best protections we can provide.

On Earth today, we are trying to make amends for the widespread environmental destruction of our human past. Let’s not reproduce acts of environmental indifference if and when we colonize Mars or any other place in our Solar System or elsewhere in the Universe.

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Space Propulsion Options Today and Tomorrow

NASA and other space agencies are exploring ways to get from point to point in space. Current and near-future propulsion options include:

• Electric Propulsion – often called ion propulsion. These engines combine electricity with propellant to produce thrust. In space, the electricity can be harvested using large solar panels. You wouldn’t use this form of propulsion to get off the surface of our planet because the level of thrust achieved is relatively small. But in space, electric propulsion can deliver continuous thrust using a minimal amount of propellant to increasingly accelerate your spaceship. This type of engine can move you a long way if the time to get there isn’t a priority. With very little propellant this technology can go very far.
• Solar Sails – use the pressure of high-speed photons from the sun to create propulsion. The photons produce the solar wind that allows a spacecraft to accelerate. Unfurling a large sail like the clipper ships of the 19th century produces thrust. Initially, spacecraft using solar sails would accelerate slowly. But over time the solar sail could give you a good headwind.
• Nuclear Propulsion – has the potential for long-duration space travel. There are different types of nuclear propulsion systems. One works similarly to electric propulsion using a small onboard nuclear reactor to generate heat that then is converted to produce thrust. Another type would use the power of controlled nuclear explosions to accelerate a ship through space. Crew safety in both options would require a shield to protect the crew from radiation. This makes for either very heavy structures with lead or other plate shielding, or large structures separating the living space from the nuclear power source. For the latter think of the Discovery 1 spacecraft in 2001: A Space Odyssey and you get a picture of what one of these would look like.

Science Fiction Propulsion Systems

We should briefly mention two types of propulsion that you can read about or watch in movies and television. These are warp and spore drives.

• Warp Drives – Einstein stated nothing in the Universe can exceed the speed of light. He also stated that light travelling through space can be bent by gravity. Combining these two observations has led to speculation that one could design a warp engine that produces a magnetic field so powerful it warps the space surrounding it. The main structure of the spaceship would lie inside the magnetic field. It could conceivably travel faster than light although, for those riding within it, nothing would seem out of the ordinary. Only to observers from the outside would the spaceship appear to travel faster than its light image. You wouldn’t see it but you could potentially build technology that could track it.
• Spore Drives – Featured on the Enterprise of Star Trek Discovery, these drives rely on a network of microscopic living threads running through the Universe. The idea comes from mycelium networks found here on Earth, the threadlike filaments that accompany fungi like mushrooms. Mycelium are considered to be the largest living organisms on our planet. The writers of Star Trek imagined a similar living network of threads permeating the Universe that could become an interconnected pathway for instantaneous point-to-point travel. It would seem fanciful to presume there could be a mycelial network in space. The closest equivalent to it, the wormhole,  is another science fiction-created concept. If you watched the movie Contact, then you get the idea of cutting corners in space to get from point A to point B using futuristic and fanciful technologies.

Warp and spore drives make travel through the galaxy of sci-fi no different than taking a car from one place to another here on Earth. They sound wonderful but they are not reality.

Introducing A Potential Reality: Pulsed Plasma Rockets

What are the nascent other solutions that can bring us closer to speeds that would make travel to Mars and Deep Space viable? Is there anything on the drawing boards? Can a propulsion system produce the thrust that can cut the journey between Earth and Mars from 6 months to 60 days?

If we want to reach Deep Space, establish an easily serviced permanent presence on the Moon, build a colony on Mars, or create artificial cities in space from here to the Asteroid Belt and beyond, then we need to go a lot faster.

Howe Industries, a company located in Scottsdale, Arizona, believes it can build the propulsion system to do the trick. The technology is called a Pulsed Plasma Rocket (PPR). It theoretically can create massive amounts of thrust in short pulses to quickly accelerate large payloads or crewed spaceships to speeds that would shorten the travel time to Mars to as little as two months.

A PPR uses an onboard nuclear power source that would generate 2.5 Gigawatts of electricity to produce 100,000 Newtons of thrust. Newtons are the measure that rocket scientists use for calculating thrust. The greater the number, the faster the rocket can accelerate. A PPR generates pulsed thrusts that if it works will move far faster than any current rocket technology today.

NASA is working with Howe Industries to make the PPR a reality. If they succeed, then Elon Musk’s dream of building a city of one million on Mars becomes possible. The current dream to use SpaceX Starships is more suicidal than real. The risk to humans making the voyage to become Martians is far too great. With a PPR, however, interplanetary travel risk would be dramatically reduced for those onboard who would be less exposed to cosmic radiation that could prove fatal.

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