Why Don’t We Simulate a Mars Mission?
A Mars mission has a lot of unknowns, because we never did something like that. But that in turn makes progressing on such an endeavour hard. One way is to reduce the risk: Suppose we build a full-sized spacecraft, equipped with all the supplies, and put it in a big vacuum chamber like this one:
Whatever the duration of the mission, the spacecraft will have to spend that much time in this chamber. With a crew in it.
Have a light source to simulate the sun with the same brightness and spectral signature. Make it emit radiation to simulate what’s in space. Make it move to simulate the movement of the sun. If the spacecraft is supposed to rotate, mount it on a platform and rotate the platform. If it’s supposed to rotate vertically, move the sun instead.
Cool the room down to the temperature of space or, if that’s not possible, as much as possible.
Have the spacecraft use its solar panels to generate electricity, rather than supplying it externally. Carry all supplies like food and water in the spacecraft.
Have a full team of astronauts in the spacecraft. Impose a delay on all communications with Mission Control, and increase it and reduce the bandwidth as the spacecraft moves away from earth. There would have a big red button that can be pressed in an emergency to turn off the delay.
In addition to testing the tech, this will test the psychology of the team, whether they can live and work together in a confined space for such a long time.
We may not have all the tech needed for planetary missions, but experiments like this are doable with the tech we have, so we can make progress and learn more without waiting and avoiding the catch-22 of not having all the tech, so not doing a mission, so not being able to identify the tech we need. Space exploration has stagnated. We need to get un-stuck.
There’s also the risk: we can’t send astronauts out to space without carefully preparing for as many situations as we can, because that would risk their lives, causing PR and ethical issues. But the risk is much lower in such an experiment: astronauts are unlikely to die.
We can also do multiple experiments: say a Mars mission and a mission to reach the clouds of Venus. There’s no way we’ll be able to do real missions to both these planets simultaneously, or even within a decade.
Then there’s the cost: A manned Mars mission is estimated to cost $100 billion, which makes it hard politically This experiment costs a fraction, so the activation energy of doing it is much lower.
And many countries like India can’t afford a Mars mission, but we can afford this experiment, increasing our knowledge of space and better preparing humanity to take the next step.