Summary: The Martian By Andy Weir

For this assignment, I want to look into the challenges of long distances space travel to planets such as Mars. The Idea for this assignment came from the book, The Martian by Andy Weir. However, the time in which the mission to travel to Mars takes place in 2035, and I want to compare and analyze the same trip with consideration of our current technology and challenges that we still face today. There are 3 main points that will be discussed in this essay, the distance from Earth to Mars and the problems that may occur in a long trip, what would be some challenges for the astronauts during the trip and comparing how the astronauts in the movies overcame them to current suggested ideas. This assignment will help me understand how viable the

The first thing that happens was the crew of the Ares 3 lands on mars, they are soon alerted of a powerful dust storm heading their way that could possibly compromise the entire mission. Soon the storm becomes too powerful and the mission is declared aborted. The crew hold on to dear life as they struggle to trek through the wind, sudden a large equipment supply hurdles through, taking out a crew member, Mark Watney. No longer to be able to stay, and quickly losing the option to leave the planet, the remaining 5 members blast into orbit to be captured by the Hermes spaceship. After a while, Watney wakes up from the sound of his oxygen leakage alarm, realizing he is alive and no one to help him, he becomes the only person on Mars. It was not until a few months later that the Hermes ship discovers that Watney is alive and has been alone for months, He was able to establish communication with NASA from a long journey to a probe called Pathfinder to use its radio. NASA had known not long after the mission was aborted that Watney was live due to an accidental satellite surveillance on Mars activity, they saw changes and human activity, that is when they realize Watney was alive. Plans for rescue is underway in NASA and all around the world, and once the Hermes realize they had a plan, they took the chance and flew back to Mars before Watney starved. After another few months the Hermes

Challenge on health, such as radiation, lack of gravity can impact humans in space. One big problem that haunts a manned space travel to Mars is radiation. High energy particulars are consistently scattering into space from the Sun and other high energy bodies, these particulars can cause harm to humans in space, especially the longer the flight is. Unlike the Earth, which has a magnetosphere to protect us from harmful radiation, a spacecraft would not have a large rotating metal core to create a similar field. Instead, other forms of shielding is required. The International Space Station protect itself by active monitoring of solar flares, it is also within Earth’s magnetosphere range (Dunbar para 26). A spacecraft far from Earth’s traveling to Mars will be exposed to two thirds of a Sievert on a round trip (NASA Para 2), this number is very significant because it raises the chance of cancer. To shield the astronauts, we need to provide more layers of protections to the ship, by increasing the thickness of aluminum polyethylene ship parts. The only problem to this is it makes the ship very heavy and make the trip more expensive. The best way to limit the amount of radiation is by shortening the trip itself. Another give concern would be the lack of gravity and how it affect the human body. Over long periods of time, the body lose a lot of muscle mass and are