Word: apollo
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...Venus route would also cause the craft to re-enter the earth's atmosphere at 80,000 m.p.h., in contrast to the returning Apollo's 25,000 m.p.h. "We're not sure we know how to build the appropriate heat shields," says Oberg. Also, at that speed, the astronauts would have a much smaller "window" for re-entering the atmosphere. "Come in too low, and you burn up," says Oberg. "Come in too high, and you overshoot. You miss the earth, and you'll never see it again." Other plans call for an unmanned cargo ship to precede the manned...
Despite the experience gained from Apollo moon shots and the longer Skylab missions, U.S. doctors have some doubts about the ability of humans to withstand the effects not only of prolonged weightlessness but also of the transitions from gravity on earth (one G) to zero G in space to 0.38 G on Mars. "We're nowhere near ready to send a human to Mars," says Dr. Michael Bungo, director of NASA's Space Biomedical Research Institute at the Johnson Space Center. "We've got years more of basic research...
...Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins foresees some technical difficulties in such simulation. "Spinning wouldn't take that much power," he says. "But it still complicates things immeasurably from an engineering point of view." He notes that imparting spin to a Mars-bound craft could make both navigation and communication more difficult...
...major U.S. contribution would be an "intelligent" ground vehicle. The robot rambler, which resembles the "moon buggy" used in the Apollo moon landings, would be used to gather and analyze soil samples. It must be able to find its way around the Martian surface, guided by an advanced artificial- intelligence "brain." It would then deposit the soil samples in a special canister that would be blasted aloft to the Soviet orbiter for the trip home. The 1976 U.S. Viking Lander probes, by contrast, could only radio data from soil samples back from Mars. This time, the samples would be returned...
Even so, there are other, more formidable barriers. Past cooperative space ventures have been closely tied to politics. The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, for example, sprang from an earlier era of detente. The costly linkup between the orbiting U.S. and Soviet capsules (price tag: $300 million) was promoted to test compatible docking systems but had little scientific value: the flight was the last for the Apollo program. Prospects for more joint missions disappeared in December 1979, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. "These missions start for policy reasons and stop for political reasons," says Nancy Lubin, a Government expert...