D.C. Correspondent David Shuster and “Countdown” contributor and chief astronomer for the Franklin Institute Derrick Pitts examine a Russian mock mission to Mars, and what it might mean for future space travel to our sister planet.
DAVID SHUSTER: Outer space still remains the last frontier. The next logical step in space exploration is a trip to our sister planet, Mars.
In our number-one story, six men have completed what can only be described as an extremely small step for mankind, after completing a 17-month mock mission to Mars — mock being the key word. Six men arrived home today after spending 520 days on a simulated trip to Mars. Oh, sorry, that was footage from the movie “Total Recall.” Here’s the actual footage of the brave men emerging from — what appears to be a shack.
The $15 million Mars 500 mission was focused on the psychological effects of being in a confined space for an extended period of time. The men were fed rations, rarely showered, and were under constant surveillance to monitor their health. The mission — carried out by the European Space Agency and Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems — seems to have been a success, as all six men emerged healthy. They will undergo evaluations over the next few days to confirm their health. This is a major advancement for the program, after a similar experiment failed in 2000 after two of the participants got in a fistfight.
Still, space officials say — technologically, they are still decades away from protecting astronauts from cosmic radiation, landing them 35 million miles away, and then bringing them home. Basically, everything that would be required in actually sending people to Mars. Here to explain all of this, in terms I can understand, is chief astronomer of the Franklin Institute and “Countdown” contributor Derrick Pitts. Derrick, thanks, as always, for your time tonight. Does this prove that humans are ready to go to Mars?
DERRICK PITTS: I really don’t think so, Dave. I think what it does, though, is — it at least gives us a window into figuring out what sorts of things we really have to pay attention to, when we consider sending people on such a long trip. This was only six people. Imagine a real voyage, with maybe 12 people, and they have to travel together for a year and a half or two years — all the way out to Mars, some 45 to 50 million miles away. It’s not an easy prospect.
SHUSTER: They still had gravity, they didn’t have to take off or land. There’s no new atmospheres — what, though, could they possibly learn about a trip to Mars by essentially being locked in a room together for 17 months?
PITTS: Well, the psychological aspect really is very important, when you think about it. You know, here you have a group of people that have been thrown together for this particular mission — and indeed, maybe they have worked together and trained together for a long time — but when you put them under the stresses that really would be involved in a Mars trip, I think it can really change people. And we have to watch out for exactly what kinds of changes might take place.
So, in this particular instance, one of the things that’s missing, I think, is the stress of being on a journey that could turn out to be a one way trip, in many ways — depending on how things shake out. So, I think that would add a tremendous amount to interactions between people, how people react to this — all those sorts of things that can’t really have any resolution, in a sense, once you get out on a trip like this. So, it’s better to try to figure it out ahead of time.
SHUSTER: We have the space station now, so — why not actually try this in actual space?
PITTS: Part of the reason why we aren’t doing this just yet in actual space is because it would be very expensive to do this. We’d essentially have to dedicate the International Space Station to at least six months of time just for this alone, and then, of course, there’s the risk involved. You know, the International Space Station is 220 miles above the earth, traveling at 17,500 miles per hour. So, when you put those factors together, then it sort of begs the question — do we really want to do this?
So, there needs to be a commitment by all the partners, or players, who might be involved in a trip like this to actually put up the cash and put up the dedication to seeing an experiment like that through — a very important one that should be done at some time.
SHUSTER: Moving on to other space stories, I keep reading that there’s an asteroid coming to destroy all of us next week. Are Bruce Willis and his rag-tag group of oil drillers ready to go save the world?
PITTS: I think they need to get ready. We don’t have any real impending danger just yet. Although, next Tuesday evening, there will be an asteroid. It’s asteroid 2005-YU-55, I believe it is, that’s going to pass within about 200 thousand miles of earth. Now, that’s even closer than the orbit of the moon, which is 238 thousand miles. This object, though, is only 400 meters in width — and that’s about 1,200 feet — and it will pass above the orbital plane of the earth. So, even though it’s relatively close — closer than anything else we’ve seen in like the last 30 years or so — it’s not large enough to do any damage to us, no need for us to worry. But it may be possible for some people to actually see it in the evening sky.
SHUSTER: Would you need a telescope to be able to see it?
PITTS: You need a very big telescope to see it, because the object — even though it’s 400 meters, David, it’s still small, it’s still quite dark — dim, even, if you will — and, because it’s moving at a pretty good rate of speed, it might be difficult to pick it up. But, it’s still observable by professional astronomers using radar telescopes and other instruments.
SHUSTER: Another story out today — about NASA trying to create a laser that acts as a tractor beam. Since we’re no longer sending people into space, why do we need a tractor beam?
PITTS: You know, the actual idea of this is not really the “Star Trek” idea of grabbing spacecraft and pulling them in. But, a group of scientists at NASA have figured out that there are certain kinds of physical properties that laser beams have, that — if you cross the beams in just the right way — you can actually make very small particles move along the beams. So, it’s somewhat similar to — you know the scene that we saw in “Ghostbusters” where they crossed the beams of the guns and they pulled the spirits in? — well, it’s kind of like that, except they’re not pulling spirits, they’re just pulling very small particles — could be applicable when trying to get particles from distant planets to be drawn up from the surface without sending people down.
SHUSTER: And real quickly, will we ever reach a point where we’ve reached the smallest particle?
PITTS: I don’t think we’ll get to that smallest particle. There’s so much out there. You know, we’re trying right now to figure out how to use a laser beam to identify these really tiny elementary particles. But I think there’s a whole lot more in that zoo of them — very, very small — that we have yet to discover.
SHUSTER: Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer of the Franklin Institute. Derrick, thanks as always, we appreciate it.
PITTS: My pleasure, David. Thank you.
