Sending Humans On Voyages Into Space Space is a very dangerous place and we are finding out it could be even more dangerous than we thought. When we put humans into space we know no gravity situations are bad for them and no matter how much they exercise their muscles are affected. We also know there is deadly radiation out there and even those people we sent to the space station receive more radiation than those who remain on earth. We have just found out the lack of gravity has a bad effect on the immune system. When astronauts were sent to the space station some of them experienced altered vision, and even increased intracranial pressure. It is believed the pressure comes from the redistribution of the body’s fluids. You have to remember gravity on earth keeps everything in place in our bodies, take it away and things change. It is not going to be enough to provide humans who are going to travel in space just a craft which is capable of that type of flight. We have to make the inside of our spacecraft very earthlike so the same conditions which are necessary to our health exist inside our craft. This is one of the reasons some scientists think we should be sending advanced robots to explore space instead of humans. They say it would eliminate a lot of the worries to a crew of humans, and lower cost of building the spacecraft because it wouldn’t need a human friendly environment. There may be some incredible robots made in the future, but there will never be one which can replace a human. Human intuition, or the ability for a human for versatility is what has gotten us to this point in evolution. I think the human race deserves to get the chance to explore space just as the great explorers like Marco Polo got the chance to explore some great places. To him, when he went to China, it was the equivalent to the astronauts going to the moon. I wouldn’t want to deprive humans of this chance. There are just so many things we have found out about the dangers of space travel. If we look at some of those old science fiction movies, sometimes they show a spacecraft trying to dodge a meteor storm. While this event is depicted a lot in films, and does happen in space, I think it happens a lot less times than one would think. What would we do if we were on a spacecraft and encountered one? First of all, we would need long range radar to detect it and move out of the way if possible. If it was not possible because the swarm was too large, we could try and dodge the meteors, but that is not as easy as it looks in the movies. We are talking about meteors which could be traveling at about 2,500 miles a minute. Add to that the forward speed of the spacecraft and you can see dodging would be very difficult, but an advanced computer might be able to make the calculations, but of course if the meteor swarm was too close together we could have a problem. We don’t have much experience with meteors moving in deep space and there might be some which can even travel at the speed of light and we just haven’t discovered them yet. Our ship would need some way of not only destroying a relatively large meteor or asteroid, and do it in such a way it is disintegrated so none of the pieces become a problem for us. On top of all that we need some sort of shield which could at least stop small pieces of rock from penetrating our ship. Just this area of space travel is very problematic. Think about all the other areas we have to create protection for, or provide for in some way. Space travel takes a long time. That is a very big problem for us. We might have other secret vehicles, but I can only go by all the rockets I see being launch when I talk about traveling through space. Humans are very needy creatures. Three things we absolutely need are food, water and rest. If the trip even lasts a year there and a year back, it means we need almost 2,000 pounds of food a year and it can’t just be any food. There are certain foods we need to eat to stay healthy. The average American uses over 100,000 gallons of water a year. Let me put this into context. It is said the fastest we could get to Mars is about 9 months each way when it is at its closest. A 5 person crew would need 7,500 pounds of food just for the round trip, not counting what they need for the stay. They would need 375,000 gallons of water for the trip and again not counting what they used on their stay. The water alone weighs over one million pounds. What about oxygen? The average person needs 9.5 tons of air for a year. If we calculate what would be needed for a round trip for 5 people, we need roughly 36 tons for the round trip and possibly more for the stay on Mars if a camp hasn’t already been set up. This all adds up to an incredible amount of extra weight and we haven’t gotten to the equipment the crew would need for different tests on the planet and extra for entertainment. Yes, entertainment, it is a long trip. Going back to those old science fiction movies they had a simple fictitious solution and that was put people to sleep, lower their heartbeat and wake them when the ship arrives. This way no food, and water was needed and a lot less air. We are not capable of doing this yet and I can’t help but feel it is wrong even if we could do it. It would mean these people would be at the mercy of a computer which would have to know what to do in every type of emergency, and there is always something we don’t think of. Finally, there is the idea one person stays awake for the entire trip to watch over the sleeping crew. It would take more supplies, but only one fifth of what would be necessary for the entire crew if they were awake. One very serious problem is that person’s mental health. He, or she, would be alone for the entire nine months of the trip. If something happened and he had to wake the crew, it would be a death sentence for all of them. Our first priority has to be to protect the crew on a space voyage, and the second priority is to get more speed, a lot more speed.
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