Q&A: A Missionary for Mars Exploration
How long would a voyage to Mars take?
It would take six months to get to Mars, and that's with current propulsion. Now, once you're there, then there will be a year and a half while you're there in order for the planets to line up to give you a favorable window to travel back, and then the voyage back will take six months. My dad went to World War II and he was away for three years and eating a lot worse food than these astronauts are going to eat. This would not be the first time that anybody's been away from home for three years.
Based on your research, how could a voyage to Mars best work?
First, you shoot the return ship to Mars and it starts making the fuel for the trip back. That goes to Mars with no one in it. At the next launch opportunity, the crew shoots out to Mars in their habitat module. They carry out their research program on Mars for a year and a half, then they take the return ship back and leave the habitat module. So each time you do this, you add another habitat for a base.
Describe the Mars Society's simulated bases?
We have a crew in our desert location right now; that's in southern Utah. We'll have another one in the Canadian high Arctic, on Devon Island. It's a polar desert, there are no plants, there are almost no animals. It's got very similar geography, people think, to what might exist on Mars. We decided that what we would do is set up a base there and then conduct a series of field investigations in as many of the conditions that people would experience on Mars as could be experienced by the crew. We say, "You can't go outside without a space suit on. Your duration out there is limited. You can't really talk to anyone. You've got to use the radio." They've got to do their own repairs on equipment. They've got to get along with one another.
How you ever gone?
I've done four [tours]. I've done three in the Arctic and one in the desert.
What sorts of people participate?
We send out a call for volunteers on the Internet. We've had at this point something like 1,400 people volunteer, and 300 people have served in one crew or another. Most of them are engineers. We've had professors, we've had graduate students, we've had undergraduates. Around 20 percent of our crews have been NASA or [European Space Agency] scientists or engineers.
Does NASA support you?
Initially this opportunity was privately funded. Now, we have begun to get some NASA money. I think we've gotten about $50,000 or so. Now, you can do this on the moon, but clearly if you can do it for 1/1,000th of the cost in the Arctic, then you can get 1,000 times the training done for the same cost. Only those things that need to be done on the moon should be done on the moon.
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