Tag Archives: Space Travel

Obama vows to send people to Mars by 2030

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks on Mars inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water are seen in a NASA handout image

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to help send people to Mars within the next 15 years, pledging to work with private companies to “to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions in deep space.”

“We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America’s story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time,” Obama said in an opinion piece for CNN posted to its website.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Human flights to Mars still at least 15 years off: ESA head

Monitors in the ESOC

By Maria Sheahan and Ashutosh Pandey

DARMSTADT, Germany (Reuters) – Dreaming of a trip to Mars? You’ll have to wait at least 15 years for the technology to be developed, the head of the European Space Agency (ESA) said, putting doubt on claims that the journey could happen sooner.

“If there was enough money then we could possibly do it earlier but there is not as much now as the Apollo program had,” ESA Director-General Jan Woerner said, referring to the U.S. project which landed the first people on the moon.

Woerner says a permanent human settlement on the moon, where 3D printers could be used to turn moon rock into essential items needed for the two-year trip to Mars, would be a major step toward the red planet.

U.S. space agency NASA hopes to send astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s and businessman Elon Musk, head of electric car maker Tesla Motors, says he plans to put unmanned spacecraft on Mars from as early as 2018 and have humans there by 2030.

The ESA’s Woerner said it would take longer.

A spacecraft sent to Mars would need rockets and fuel powerful enough to lift back off for the return trip and the humans would need protection from unprecedented physical and mental challenges as well as deep-space radiation.

Woerner would like to see a cluster of research laboratories on the moon, at what he calls a “moon village”, to replace the International Space Station when its lifetime ends and to test technologies needed to make the trip to Mars.

That could be funded and operated by a collection of private and public bodies from around the world, he said in an interview at the ESA’s Operations Centre.

“There are various companies and public agencies asking to join the club now, so they want to do different things, resource mining, in situ research, tourism and that kind of stuff. There is a big community interested,” he told Reuters.

“The moon village is a pit stop on the way to Mars,” Woerner said, adding that new 3D printing technology could be used to build material and structures out of rocks and dust, doing away with the cost of transporting everything needed for a mission.

“To test how to use lunar material to build some structures, not only houses, but also for a telescope or whatever, will teach us also how to do it on Mars,” he said.

The ESA, working with Russia, in March sent a spacecraft on a seven-month journey as part of the agency’s ExoMars mission, which will use an atmospheric probe to sniff out signs of life on Mars and deploy a lander to test technologies needed for a rover scheduled to follow in 2020.

Woerner said Europe was looking at ways to lower the cost of launches but did not plan to copy Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is trying to develop relatively cheap, reusable launch vehicles.

“We should not copy. To follow and copy does not bring you into the lead. We are looking for totally different approaches,” Woerner said, adding the ESA was examining all manner of new technologies, including air-breathing engines that do not need to tap into oxygen from a spacecraft’s tank.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

China to land probe on dark side of moon in 2018, Xinhua reports

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China plans to land the first probe ever on the dark side of the moon in 2018, marking another milestone in its ambitious space program, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

China has launched a new round of work focused on lunar exploration, coming about two years after it made the first “soft landing” on the moon since 1976 with the Chang’e-3 craft and its Jade Rabbit rover.

Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon, that is never visible from earth, but none has landed on it.

A new probe, the Chang’e-4, is similar to the Chang’e-3 but can carry a bigger payload, Xinhua quoted Liu Jizhong, head of the science, technology and defense industry administration’s lunar exploration center, as saying late on Thursday.

The craft will study geological conditions on the far side of the moon, Liu said.

Advancing China’s space program has been a priority of leaders, with President Xi Jinping calling for China to establish itself as a space power.

China insists that its space program is for peaceful purposes.

However, the U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China’s increasing space capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.

In March, the Chinese government said it would open up its lunar exploration program to companies rather than simply relying on the state-owned sector as before, hoping to boost technological breakthroughs.

Xinhua said China sent “a letter of intent of cooperation” on its latest mission to foreign countries in early 2015. It was not clear if any had signed up.

(Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Robert Birsel)