Moving to Mars at the Design Museum
Moving to Mars is an exhibition at London's Design Museum about the exploration and possible colonisation of Mars.
The exhibition is divided logically into themed galleries: studying Mars pre-spaceflight through telescopes (with emphasis on Schiaparelli's and Lowell's notions about canals and shallow seas); the present era of robotic exploration; how humans might travel to Mars; and how we might live and work when we get there.
One highlight is a huge video screen with a compilation of panoramas taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The presence of a hulking concrete pillar in this room rather spoils the view, unless you stand or sit close enough to the screen that you can't see all of it at once... though I suppose that's the point of a panorama. Superimposed on each picture is (among other facts and figures) a note of how far the rover had driven when it took it. That brings home why scientists are so keen to send humans to Mars - Curiosity is the most advanced and sophisticated machine ever to land on another planet, but it averages two miles a year. Partly this is because the rover is mostly driving itself. Mars is too far away for it to be feasible for a human to drive the rover by remote control, so the scientists tell it "go to that rock over there" and it figures out for itself how to do that. Partly it's because they have to be cautious - the terrain is quite rough, and if anything breaks, there's no way to fix it.
The gallery about sending humans to Mars mostly concentrates on SpaceX's plans, mainly because nobody else seems to be taking it seriously at the moment. Tucked away at the side of this gallery are some drawings and concept paintings of a proposal for a manned mission created by Werner von Braun, first published in English in 1952. It was on an epic scale - 70 astronauts would travel in 10 ships, assembled in Earth orbit, each with a mass of nearly 4,000 tonnes. (The International Space Station, the biggest man-made thing ever put into space, masses a "mere" 420 tonnes.) He didn't foresee the advances in communication technology or automation. He seems not to have considered the possibility of sending supplies in advance on unmanned missions, or of having robots build a base on Mars before the humans arrive. He also seems to have assumed that the astronauts would be completely on their own after leaving Earth, unable to radio home for advice or instructions. Hence the large crew - it needed to be that big to have expertise in everything that might need to be done in space or on Mars. One thing that von Braun couldn't have known is that the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than was generally thought at the time. His landing craft were gliders with huge wings that would have landed on one of the polar icecaps, those being the only regions with a large enough flat area. Probes that have actually landed on Mars have used a nerve-wracking combination of aerobraking, parachutes and retrorockets.
If sending humans to Mars is tough, living there is tougher. The harshest habitable place on Earth is a paradise compared to anywhere on Mars. It's colder than Antarctica. The air is thinner than at the top of Mount Everest. The sun bathes the planet in deadly ultraviolet radiation and charged particles. (Earth's atmosphere blocks most of this from reaching the ground.) Dust storms can envelop the planet for months. The dust itself is toxic to humans and sticks to everything, shorting out electronics and jamming machinery. (A clever idea for keeping the worst of the dust out of the habitat is to have the spacesuits attached to the outside when not in use, and for the astronaut to climb into and out of the suit via a hatch in the back. Effectively the spacesuit becomes the outer door of the airlock.)
The final gallery shows various proposals for living on Mars, most of which involve robots 3D-printing a outer shell from the Martian soil before humans arrive. At the end is a full-scale mock-up of a module of one of these designs, with a video wall showing other modules next to it. The furniture is made of low-density plastic, and has the characteristic "ridged" look of low-fidelity 3D-printing. One of the chairs is easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. I thought it would be easier to get out of on Mars, with the lower gravity, and then wondered whether it should've been adjusted to simulate this on Earth.
The problems of going to Mars and living there are psychological as much as technological. The astronauts will be cooped up with the same few people for years, able to talk to the rest of humanity, but not in real time. (Even when Earth and Mars are at their closest, it takes around 15 minutes for a message to go from one to the other and a reply to start coming back.) They'll be allowed to bring reminders of home, though space and weight allowances will be limited, so presumably many of the reminders will be digital. One idea is a device that contains smells of favourite things or places (or perhaps can synthesise them - it's not entirely clear).
Finally we have some videos of various experts talking about what a trip to Mars might mean for science and for humanity. Humans are adventurers and explorers, and going to Mars is the biggest adventure that's likely to be feasible in the lifetime of anyone visiting the exhibition. Meeting the practical challenges will push technology forward, just as the Space Race did in the 1950s and 1960s. In one day, one person could do more science than all the landers and rovers we've ever sent there.
On the other hand, the enormous likely cost of a mission could be off-putting, though it's much less than the cost of some advanced weapons programmes and various futile wars. (This is where I grumble that most people aren't good with numbers, especially big numbers. Many people seem to think that NASA's budget, for instance, is much bigger than it really is. It's currently around half a percent of the total that the US government spends each year. That share peaked at around 4% during Apollo and has been falling ever since.)
Others argue that we need to establish permanent settlements elsewhere in the solar system as an insurance policy against a disaster that kills off most or all humans on Earth, like an asteroid strike or a pandemic. Then again, many of the threats that could drive us extinct are of our own making, and if some humans live in places where those threats can't reach, that might lead us to relax our vigilance against them.
I found the exhibition informative and (on the whole) well-presented, and thought-provoking on several levels. It's probably longer than most of the ones we pay to see - we were there for about three hours, though I don't know how much of that was because we were with a friend who really enjoyed it.
Moving to Mars runs until 23 February 2020. Tickets for adults start at £16, including an optional donation to the museum.
The exhibition is divided logically into themed galleries: studying Mars pre-spaceflight through telescopes (with emphasis on Schiaparelli's and Lowell's notions about canals and shallow seas); the present era of robotic exploration; how humans might travel to Mars; and how we might live and work when we get there.
One highlight is a huge video screen with a compilation of panoramas taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The presence of a hulking concrete pillar in this room rather spoils the view, unless you stand or sit close enough to the screen that you can't see all of it at once... though I suppose that's the point of a panorama. Superimposed on each picture is (among other facts and figures) a note of how far the rover had driven when it took it. That brings home why scientists are so keen to send humans to Mars - Curiosity is the most advanced and sophisticated machine ever to land on another planet, but it averages two miles a year. Partly this is because the rover is mostly driving itself. Mars is too far away for it to be feasible for a human to drive the rover by remote control, so the scientists tell it "go to that rock over there" and it figures out for itself how to do that. Partly it's because they have to be cautious - the terrain is quite rough, and if anything breaks, there's no way to fix it.
The gallery about sending humans to Mars mostly concentrates on SpaceX's plans, mainly because nobody else seems to be taking it seriously at the moment. Tucked away at the side of this gallery are some drawings and concept paintings of a proposal for a manned mission created by Werner von Braun, first published in English in 1952. It was on an epic scale - 70 astronauts would travel in 10 ships, assembled in Earth orbit, each with a mass of nearly 4,000 tonnes. (The International Space Station, the biggest man-made thing ever put into space, masses a "mere" 420 tonnes.) He didn't foresee the advances in communication technology or automation. He seems not to have considered the possibility of sending supplies in advance on unmanned missions, or of having robots build a base on Mars before the humans arrive. He also seems to have assumed that the astronauts would be completely on their own after leaving Earth, unable to radio home for advice or instructions. Hence the large crew - it needed to be that big to have expertise in everything that might need to be done in space or on Mars. One thing that von Braun couldn't have known is that the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than was generally thought at the time. His landing craft were gliders with huge wings that would have landed on one of the polar icecaps, those being the only regions with a large enough flat area. Probes that have actually landed on Mars have used a nerve-wracking combination of aerobraking, parachutes and retrorockets.
If sending humans to Mars is tough, living there is tougher. The harshest habitable place on Earth is a paradise compared to anywhere on Mars. It's colder than Antarctica. The air is thinner than at the top of Mount Everest. The sun bathes the planet in deadly ultraviolet radiation and charged particles. (Earth's atmosphere blocks most of this from reaching the ground.) Dust storms can envelop the planet for months. The dust itself is toxic to humans and sticks to everything, shorting out electronics and jamming machinery. (A clever idea for keeping the worst of the dust out of the habitat is to have the spacesuits attached to the outside when not in use, and for the astronaut to climb into and out of the suit via a hatch in the back. Effectively the spacesuit becomes the outer door of the airlock.)
The final gallery shows various proposals for living on Mars, most of which involve robots 3D-printing a outer shell from the Martian soil before humans arrive. At the end is a full-scale mock-up of a module of one of these designs, with a video wall showing other modules next to it. The furniture is made of low-density plastic, and has the characteristic "ridged" look of low-fidelity 3D-printing. One of the chairs is easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. I thought it would be easier to get out of on Mars, with the lower gravity, and then wondered whether it should've been adjusted to simulate this on Earth.
The problems of going to Mars and living there are psychological as much as technological. The astronauts will be cooped up with the same few people for years, able to talk to the rest of humanity, but not in real time. (Even when Earth and Mars are at their closest, it takes around 15 minutes for a message to go from one to the other and a reply to start coming back.) They'll be allowed to bring reminders of home, though space and weight allowances will be limited, so presumably many of the reminders will be digital. One idea is a device that contains smells of favourite things or places (or perhaps can synthesise them - it's not entirely clear).
Finally we have some videos of various experts talking about what a trip to Mars might mean for science and for humanity. Humans are adventurers and explorers, and going to Mars is the biggest adventure that's likely to be feasible in the lifetime of anyone visiting the exhibition. Meeting the practical challenges will push technology forward, just as the Space Race did in the 1950s and 1960s. In one day, one person could do more science than all the landers and rovers we've ever sent there.
On the other hand, the enormous likely cost of a mission could be off-putting, though it's much less than the cost of some advanced weapons programmes and various futile wars. (This is where I grumble that most people aren't good with numbers, especially big numbers. Many people seem to think that NASA's budget, for instance, is much bigger than it really is. It's currently around half a percent of the total that the US government spends each year. That share peaked at around 4% during Apollo and has been falling ever since.)
Others argue that we need to establish permanent settlements elsewhere in the solar system as an insurance policy against a disaster that kills off most or all humans on Earth, like an asteroid strike or a pandemic. Then again, many of the threats that could drive us extinct are of our own making, and if some humans live in places where those threats can't reach, that might lead us to relax our vigilance against them.
I found the exhibition informative and (on the whole) well-presented, and thought-provoking on several levels. It's probably longer than most of the ones we pay to see - we were there for about three hours, though I don't know how much of that was because we were with a friend who really enjoyed it.
Moving to Mars runs until 23 February 2020. Tickets for adults start at £16, including an optional donation to the museum.
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