Word: spacecraft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That is just what the Soviets plan to do. In 1992, when America's Mars Observer is scheduled to fly, they hope to send a third Phobos spacecraft into Mars orbit carrying advanced remote-sensing devices, including a radar mapper that will seek out the best landing sites for future missions. Two years later, the Soviets intend to launch a pair of highly sophisticated landers to Mars. Each will carry a small computer-controlled surface rover, a six-wheeled vehicle capable of traveling as far as 60 miles from the lander. It will be equipped with TV cameras, scoops...
...policy, announced by President Reagan in February, does envision eventual "human exploration of the solar system." Toward that end, NASA has launched Project Pathfinder, a program to develop 18 new space technologies. They include compact nuclear reactors for powering lunar or Martian bases, in-space construction and assembly of spacecraft, and orbiting fuel depots for moon and Mars ships. "You can talk about going to Mars," says Pathfinder Leader Robert Rosen, "but you can't do it without these technologies." Congress appropriated $40 million for the project's first year...
...problems of sending a spacecraft to Mars and bringing it back to earth pale when compared with the challenge of keeping its human cargo safe and in peak physical and mental condition. The medical consequences of long periods of weightlessness are still not fully understood. And radiation, says NASA's Michael Bungo, "is going to be a showstopper." Once beyond the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, which protects terrestrial life from most lethal radiation, crew members would be vulnerable to cosmic rays. These highly energetic particles travel through space at close to the speed of light and can produce...
...year solar cycle. During these massive explosions, which astronomers can spot in the form of extra-bright splotches suddenly appearing on the sun, bursts of X rays and charged particles are hurled outward at high velocities. Because protons from a large flare can easily penetrate the walls of a spacecraft and fatally riddle the body of an astronaut in half an hour, planners envision an onboard shelter into which the crew could repair as soon as a solar-flare warning was sounded. One idea is to build the shelter with the heavy-walled oxygen and water tanks that must...
...mission would be "monstrously" expensive, further draining money from more economical unmanned scientific probes. The Mars mission does have a certain appeal, he concedes, because "it's a matter of high adventure. But if you want to put it on any practical basis, it's totally uncompetitive with unmanned spacecraft by a factor...