– Walter Villadei – 
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Walter Villadei, astronaut in the service of the Italian air force, reflects on the difficulties of bringing the human being on Mars in the aftermath of the arrival of the ExoMars
(Credits: NASA / USGS)
After seven months of flight, interplanetary, the mission ExoMars has finally come on the Mars with the correct insertion in the orbit of mars probe TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter), followed by the entrance and next ammartaggio lander Schiaparelli. However, a demonstration that in space exploration, nothing is ever taken for granted, the link with Schiaparelli is interrupted about a minute before the "touchdown" and the centre ESOC in Darmstadt, germany is still trying to establish contact with the object. By preliminary analysis of the data, which is currently underway, it would seem that the onboard computer has switched off the retrorazzi well in advance. Striking, therefore, that once again is the component of the flight the aircraft the appearance more risky and not easily predictable. Six minutes were required for the descent in the rarefied martian atmosphere and have shown to be more complex, and dangerous, of the seven months of flight interplanetary. This is an important lesson, that to us the history of spaceflight: the most serious accidents, with the loss of human lives, are all that occurred, except for Apollo 1, during the phases of atmospheric flight, take-off or return.
But as we can think of to get to Mars with the first human crew in a little more than 15 years, as hypothesized by the president Obama, if, for today, bring on the red planet, a small object of little more than 500 kg is an enterprise that is so complex and full of uncertainties? This is a question that is difficult to give an answer. The distance between us and Mars is not only the physical of the two planets, but also, and above all, that of time: namely, the time interval required to give a response to the many technological challenges to go to, and return from the red planet. The most critical element, but at the same time the most valuable resource for such an undertaking, is certainly that of human presence. The environment that awaits us beyond low-earth orbit, so reassuring with a distance of a few minutes flight from the Land, is much more dangerous: heavy doses of cosmic radiation are much higher than those that the astronauts absorb inside of th e Van Allen belts; the risk impact of micrometeorites; the distance from any reference to the physical and visual memories of the terrestrial environment; the propagation delay of the signals, that from the Earth to Mars take about 10 minutes, making the crew only in the choices to be taken in case of any emergency.
And this is not all. Like Schiaparelli , arrive on the surface of the planet is not simple. The technologies with the "airbags" are not easily scalable compared with the volumes and the masses imaginable in a human mission and those based on retrorazzi and parachutes are not so reliable, in the absence of more a model is sufficiently accurate of the martian atmosphere. Once you then come to "Mars" you will need to survive there for at least 18 months before you can make again a maneuver to Homann. And survive in that environment, it won’t be easy: the martian atmosphere is very thin and composed mostly of CO2; the gravity of mars is about a third that of earth; the planet is often covered by sand storms, global; the amount of radiation is very intense on the surface because the planet has a magnetic field like the earth’s. In short, an operating context in which we are not yet prepared that will require a logistics support has still to be elaborated. As an astr onaut, all this raises questions and challenges of great interest. Preparing for a mission of this kind would be such as contribute to the writing of a page of a novel today, still empty. New methods of training, not only to the ground before the mission, but also, and perhaps above all during the same in order to ensure efficiency of the psycho-physical, emotional, and operating crew. And yet man can also simplify some aspects, increasing the level of reliability of the systems, through checks and specific actions of intervention in the event of failures, as well as ensuring flexibility, adattatività and processing speed, even improvising, automated systems and robots have not yet.
The Italy in this scenario could be the protagonist by pointing to some of the technologies we already have and that will be enabling: living modules, advanced systems of "life support", a parachute for the operation of aerobraking, radar systems, scientific instrumentation, and ability systems. But to get to Mars by 2030, as recently declared by president Obama, it will be necessary to have even more determination and courage. Certainly a program of international scope, despite the complexity that this entails, contribute to a more sustainable financial commitment is certainly significant. But in addition to that, the real challenge to get to Mars will have the courage to accept some risk to ensure that the temporal distance between Earth and Mars decreases really. The countdown has already begun…