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Can Humans Live on Mars ?
Image caption: Curiosity is taking the first ever radiation measurements from the surface of another planet in order to determine if future human explorers can live on Mars – as she traverses the terrain of the Red Planet. Curiosity is looking back to her rover tracks and the foothills of Mount Sharp and the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the distant horizon on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA ‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary which premiered on Nov. 14. RAD is located on the rover deck in this colorized mosaic stitched together from Navcam images. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo
Metallic robots constructed by ingenious humans can survive on Mars. But what about future human astronauts?
NASA’s plucky Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has thrived for nearly a decade traversing the plains of Meridiani Planum despite the continuous bombardment of sterilizing cosmic and solar radiation from charged particles thanks to her radiation hardened innards.
How about humans? What fate awaits them on a bold and likely year’s long expedition to the endlessly extreme and drastically harsh environment on the surface of the radiation drenched Red Planet - if one ever gets off the ground here on Earth? How much shielding would people need?(…)
Read the rest of Can Humans Live on Mars ? (1,028 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Curiosity, Curiosity Rover, Gale crater, Mars, Mars Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Mount Sharp, MSL, NASA, Opportunity Rover, radiation, space radiation
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2012-11-19 03:45:36
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/98509/can-humans-live-on-mars/
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