It’s been a big week for space.
NASA has just sent four astronauts hurtling around the moon – the first manned lunar mission in 50 years.
It’s one of the most notable milestones of the US’ Artemis program, which has been enthusiastically backed by Donald Trump as a key plank of his plan to “ensure American space superiority”.
The US and Mr Trump’s ambition don’t end at the moon, however: he’s also eyeing up Mars too.
But there’s a giant problem in what would be a new giant leap for mankind.
For humans right now, it’s a “one-way trip”, Tommy Gantz, who studies the effects of space travel on the human body, told news.com.au.
“You can get there alive, but your body is going to be in pretty rough shape if the trip stays at a three-year mission profile, and we don’t have any advances,” she said.
With the technology we have today, Mars astronauts might not be coming home.
That means some very optimistic deadlines for getting humans onto Mars – Elon Musk’s Space X had targeted a 2028 launch date – likely won’t be met. Mr Trump won’t be able to celebrate a manned Mars landing during his presidency.
Yet, said Ms Gantz, the drive to go to Mars was so high we’d likely give it a very risky shot before the technology was “perfect”.
Yet Artemis II’s trip around the moon has been a test – a test that has so far gone resoundingly well.
The next step really will be like something out of a science fiction movie.
Mr Trump wants American boots back on the moon by 2028 and construction to begin on a permanent US lunar base by 2030.
But while the moon may be the current main event, let’s face it – the US has been there and done that.
Mars, in planetary terms, is the shiny new thing.
At his inaugural address in January last year, Mr Trump said America would “plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars”.
Last week, when Mr Trump called up the four American and one Canadian Artemis astronauts in space, he said the mission was a precursor for “ultimately … the whole big trip to Mars”.
Ms Gantz is the business development director for Seattle-based TLG Consulting, an aerospace engineering firm that supports aircraft and space vehicle development.
When – and if – a Mars mission does happen, the US city of Seattle will almost certainly be involved.
Its position as a global centre of aircraft building – centred around Boeing’s huge factories – means it is also leading on space exploration.
Boeing is a major contractor for the Artemis project. Other companies like Blue Origin, Space X and Amazon Leo have bases in Seattle. The private sector has become increasingly critical in both funding and innovating for space missions.
Countless space start-ups also pepper the region, which is sandwiched between the glossy waters of Puget Sound and the snowy crown of Mt Rainier, so high it appears to touch the sky humans are so keen to break through.
Mars mission could take three years
That breakthrough will be hard though, Ms Gantz told news.com.au.
“The biggest issues for a Mars mission are prolonged exposure to radiation, bone density loss, muscle atrophy, cardiovascular deconditioning, and the effects of isolation and confinement,” she said at the Museum of Flight in Seattle where she is also a guide on space.
All that will be compounded by the sheer time astronauts will have to be in space.
With current technology, getting to Mars will take six to nine months and the same again to return. That in itself would likely exceed the longest single stay in space – 14 months – which Soviet cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov achieved in 1994.
But the Mars astronauts would then have to spend more than a year on or around the planet waiting for a time when Mars and Earth will realign for a fuel-efficient homeward journey.
Humans, very much used to gravity and having their feet on the ground, don’t fare well floating around in zero gravity for prolonged periods.
On Earth, gravity pulls blood down towards the legs. In space, that movement can be reversed sending blood to the head. After a while, the heart can atrophy and reduce in size as a lack of gravity means it has to do less pumping.
Then there is bone and muscle loss. The constant need on Earth for humans to battle gravity – simply by standing up, for instance – keeps our muscles and bones intact and strong.
Not so in space.
Within just two weeks, muscle and bone loss begins. Exercise can help delay this, but after months in space, an astronaut can lose up to one-fifth of their bone mass.
A mission to Mars could lead to up to 50 per cent less bone and muscle mass. An astronaut could break a leg just by stepping out of the spacecraft.
Then there’s radiation from the Sun, cosmic rays and belts around plants.
The list goes on, said Ms Gantz.
‘One way trip’
“For every month you’re in space, you lose two to three per cent of your total BMI,” she said.
“On a three-year trip to Mars, it’s estimated you’ll lose 30 to 50 per cent of your total BMI. “So it’s definitely a one-way trip.”
It’s just not feasible right now.
“I always ask, why we are spending more time looking at the propulsion technology, rather than human sustainment?” Ms Gantz said.
“(But) the argument is that with advanced propulsion, they think they can get the trip down to six weeks, and so that will reduce the challenges that we experience.”
If we can’t get to Mars faster, we might also be able to create medications to, say, slow that muscle loss. Or, perhaps the hibernation chambers, so beloved of space films, will go from science fiction to science reality.
Ms Gantz estimated the first crewed mission was “technically plausible within the next 10 to 15 years, assuming current momentum continues”.
“However, fully ‘solving’ the human health challenges in a way that makes Mars missions routine or low-risk is likely several decades out, potentially 30 to 50 years.”
‘We’ll go before it’s perfect’
Humans are too impatient for that timeline, though.
“We will likely go before we have everything perfectly solved, much like early aviation,” she said.
“The first missions will carry significant risk, and we will learn and iterate from there.”
But Ms Gantz has no time for naysayers who insist a manned trip to Mars isn’t possible.
“Through the history of aviation we’ve always heard ‘well, we can’t do that’, and then less than 10 years later, we’ve done that,” she said.
“All of aviation history is condensed into less than 150 years, and look at everything we’ve achieved.”
Mr Trump appears to have made peace with the fact he will no longer be US president by the time a Mars mission happens.
“Is (Mars) number one on my hit list? No. It’s not really,” he told Fox News in March last year.
“But it is something that would be a great achievement.”
Mr Trump may not be in office when man walks on Mars, but Artemis II’s success is a sign it could happen soon enough that he will still be able to cheer it on.
The reporter visited Seattle on a trip facilitated by the US Foreign Press Centres.
