Landing On Mars A scientist has figured out how to get to Mars faster using the same rockets we use today. The trick is to make the rocket a faster vehicle, but how do you do that if the rocket is exactly the same as others that have been launched before and they took between 6 to 8 months for the journey depending on where Mars was in its orbit? A scientific paper has been published which says to get to Mars faster we have to go in the opposite direction. This certainly sounds like a contradiction in logic doesn’t it? When you read further it begins to make sense. The idea is to send a rocket to Venus have it build up speed by orbiting Venus and then slingshot it towards Mars. I didn’t see a time period quoted for the flight from Venus to Mars for the flight using a slingshot effect, but I happen to know it would take us approximately 3 ½ months plus or minus a few days to get to Venus so the speed increase from Venus to Mars for the rocket which had already traveled 3 ½ months must be tremendous. I have to wonder why we are still basically using the same rocket technology as we used to land on the moon in 1969? How much longer are we going to use rockets? I have written other articles talking about different technologies so I won’t get into a lot of different ones again, but I would like to mention the fact if we built a spaceship in space it wouldn’t have to be rocket powered because it doesn’t have to escape the Earth’s gravity. This allows for some sort of electric drive which scientists have been talking about for years. Once you power a ship using electricity it may not even need fuel. It doesn’t take much energy in space to move something and there are engines available now that are sealed units and use no fuel and yet seem to be able to power a spaceship. Why is it we are so dedicated to going to Mars? We could go to Venus which is a much shorter trip? Even the planet Mercury which is farther away only took about 147 days in the 1970s. I have a hunch why Mars is so interesting to NASA even though they don’t admit it. I believe they have found enough objects on the face of the planet to prove intelligent life once existed there and maybe there is a slight chance they are still there today. When you see a lot of ruins, and that is what Mars looks like it has, you think of several different ways a society might have been wiped out. Of course, the first is war and as we explore the solar system and further reaches of space we will probably find sooner or later every society has a war and some will have far more than others. There may be some societies that grow beyond war and if this is true let’s hope the human race travels in that direction in the future. Another way a society may be wiped out is by disease. We getting a small picture of this with the coronavirus. It’s not strong enough to wipe us all out but if it was it could be the end of life on earth. Perhaps a shortage of food could have wiped out a race which existed on Mars. If all your food sources disappear your culture probably will. Looking at the face of Mars it seems like a barren desert but it also seems to contain relics and artifacts. There are even the remains of what look like buildings on Mars. All of this reminds me of a famous science-fiction movie from 1950. A rocket ship and crew was launched to the moon but somehow its trajectory was changed because of a meteor storm and it is rerouted to Mars. The crew lands on the red planet and discovers an advanced race which had been wiped out by nuclear war and the mutant-survivors from the planet roam it, killing anything they don’t understand. These mutants kill some of the crew of Rocketship X-M, but it manages to take off and head back to earth. I won’t tell you anymore about the movie in case you look at it and even though it is old it is certainly worth viewing. I think most people know what I am about to say and that is we have sort of owned the surface of Mars for years, because the only probes traveling the surface were from the United States. Russia managed to get a probe into orbit for a little while and land probes twice on the planet in 1971 and 1973, but that was the extent of going to Mars for them. Soon several countries will attempt to send probes towards Mars. The United States will soon launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover and head it towards Mars. It will be better equipped to search for life than any Rover we have sent so far. One of the things Perseverance will do is test to see of oxygen can be created from the atmosphere, another is when it drills rocks and finds promising ones, it will move them to a cache which is essentially just a pile of rocks which show promising results. The reason for this is it is hoped future missions to Mars will bring these rocks back to earth for further examination along with soil samples. I certainly don’t like this idea of bringing things back here, but what I think doesn’t matter. The launch is currently scheduled between July 30 to August 15, 2020. One of the things I find fascinating about this robot which would travel the surface of Mars, is the fact a small helicopter will be carried by it which can be sent out ahead of it to scan the land. The United States has gained a lot of experience sending probes to Mars. Sending probes to Mars has not been very successful for most countries and it has been stated, out of about fifty-one missions only about 20% have been successful and this includes orbiters.
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