Questions tagged [mars]
Questions about the science or exploration of the planet Mars. See the tag wiki for related tags.
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Can I move Hyperion to Mars with fusion rockets?
I'm working on a SciFi story set roughly in 2100 that takes place both on the moon and Mars. One plot point hinges on terraforming Mars, the biggest stumbling block being its lack of water and ...
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What would the maximum height of a building such as a high rise apartment building on Mars?
How many stories tall could a steel frame building be built on Mars?
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Why not land near the poles of Mars for extracting water? [duplicate]
It is hard to find ancient life on earth that is over 3 billion years old. Rocks get reworked over time. They get melted and metamorphosed, folded and fractured. Fossil evidence is easily lost.
So in ...
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What is this cylinder on the Martian surface at the Viking 2 landing site?
What is the cylinder on the Martian surface in this image taken by the Viking 2 lander?
It stands out in most images of the martian surface, including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_2#/media/...
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How big does the Martian supply chain need to be, to be self sufficient?
Something I've been pondering recently is how big the manufacturing base needs to be to manufacture everything in the manufacturing base. Big in this case referring to total mass, machines required, ...
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SpaceX Starship refueling in Mars orbit
I was wondering if the propellant required to leave Earth orbit, accelerate to Mars' orbital velocity and then perform orbital insertion will leave the starship with enough propellant to perform a ...
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Is it possible to fly a glider on Mars and if so are there any plans for one?
So I'm a Rising aerospace engineering freshman and have gotten very into the idea of learning about and figuring out possibilities of Martian Aviation.
I am well aware of Mars Ingenuity and was ...
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How can systems of skyhooks help interplanetary travel
I recently watched a kurzgesagt video on skyhooks, and it mentions that a system of skyhook, one on Mars and one on Earth, can shorten a trip to Mars from 7-9 months to 3-5 months. I am confused on ...
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Propellant choices for a Mars landing; tradeoffs between LOX/CH4 and H2O2/RP-1?
What are the tradeoffs between LOX/methane and peroxide/kerosene for a Mars landing mission?
In which ways are each better or worse than the other?
I think the second one would more attractive for ...
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Glove in Phoenix Backshell?
I stumbled across this image which shows the Phoenix Lander being integrated into its backshell:
This is the only image "source" I was able to find: https://picryl.com/media/phoenix-mars-...
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If we had a video livestream of a clock being sent to Mars, what would we see?
If, you hypothetically started 2 clocks at exactly the same time, and placed one on Earth, and one on a rocket to Mars, and setup a video feed of both clocks, how would they compare as the 2nd clock ...
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If we make a Mars or moon station, how would the carbon and water cycle work if the Earth was destroyed? [duplicate]
If it costs 50k to fly 1 pound to space, how much would the machine cost? I'm a 7th grader and I need help on my project. How would the carbon and water cycle machines work? This is hypothetical.
user51001
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Why was the ExoMars Rover to use such as complex parachute system?
American Mars landers use a single, supersonic main parachute. The European/ Russian ExoMars rover was to use a much more complex 4 parachute system consisting of a drogue, a main and a pilot for each ...
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How did NASA avoid a repeat of the Mars Polar Lander failure?
One of the most likely causes of the MPL (Mars Polar Lander) crash landing on Mars was the deployment of the legs being mistaken by the onboard computer as touchdown. Phoenix (and later InSight) ...
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What is a Mars 5-sol orbit? [closed]
I need to calculate the delta-v for descent from 5-sol orbit to the surface of Mars and then ascent back to 5-sol orbit from the surface of Mars. What is a "5-sol orbit?"
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When sending a ship to mars what is the optimal travel path [duplicate]
its pretty self explanitory but I need to figure it out but not something from the past a ship that could be sent in the next 5-7 years what would be my time frame using the least amount of fuel and ...
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Google maps for Space exploration
Google Maps
Can Google Maps for Space Exploration be defined similar to our planet Earth? I.e Planet Mars exploration, Moon exploration, International Space Station (ISS) journey and other planets of ...
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Were the distances traversed by Perseverance on Sol 718 and 719 each exactly 415.27 m or were they added together 415.27 m and if so, why?
The image above is an annotated screenshot of a part of the Perseverance location map.
On the location map the white line represents the trajectory that Perseverance has traveled in Jezero crater. ...
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Can Martian regolith be easily melted with microwaves?
Apparently, Lunar regolith will melt if you expose it to moderate power microwave energy.
Based on the accepted answer to the referenced question, it has to do with the presence of iron in the ...
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Mirror size and pixel resolution on planetary surfaces
MRO’s HiRise camera has a 0.5m primary mirror and a per-pixel resolution of ~30cm from an altitude of 200km. For an identical orbit, and ignoring any atmospheric effects, what mirror size would be ...
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Could Mars be terraformed by redirecting an asteroid to hit it? [closed]
If so, what kind of asteroid would be best?
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How would low gravity on Mars be a stress factor on plants?
As a 12 year old doing a science project for my local science fair I have found that many experiments that try to simulate how the environment would be like on Mars while growing plants always forget ...
user50496
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Lead lined Martian suit
Despite having to transport a significant amount of mass to Mars, would lead lined environment suits be viable, to provide cosmic radiation shielding for Martian colonists?
Would carrying that extra ...
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Since pure Platinum is found in alluvial deposits on Earth, could it not be detected by Perseverance on or near the fan-delta deposit in Jezero?
Platinum is an extremely rare metal, occurring at a concentration of 0.005 ppm in Earth's crust, but in some alluvial deposits it is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum and as an ...
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How realistic are the required fluorine mining quantities for terraforming Mars compared to the real mining practices on Earth?
Energy balance calculations in the JGR article Radiative-convective model of warming Mars with artificial greenhouse gases suggest that the addition of 0.2 Pa of the best greenhouse gases mixture (15%...
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Can we dig for air pressure on Mars?
Digging 8km under the lowest point on Mars will get us Mount Everest conditions for air pressure.
I was thinking of two ways of doing said title:
Nuclear powered bulldozers working around the clock ...
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How would a violin or trumpet degrade over time on Mars?
What would extended periods on Mars do to musical instruments? I'm assuming these instruments would be in habitats similar to ISS or similar, but how might they degrade?
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Why not bring an extra rover with an ExoMars drill unit to Jezero to have a far better chance to get biosignatures for the sample return mission?
In an interview in the recent article Mars Has So Much Radiation, Any Signs of Life Would Be Buried Six Feet Under physicist Alexander Pavlov of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center tells that he and ...
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Will Perseverance settle the question of life on Mars?
Here are a couple press conferences that summarize what Perseverance has found so far.
Press conference: Ten months of Perseverance: Jezero science
News Briefing: NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover ...
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Original Mariner 4 data values
Scott Manley recently did a video where he shows how the first image of Mars from up close was done with pastels while the impatient engineers waited for the image processing department to finish ...
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Why do two craters in Utopia Planitia look like dark holes and are of the few ones on Mars that look this way?
Screenshot from Mars Trek
This enigmatic crater lies in southern Utopia Planitia at 28.72⁰ N, 119.96⁰ E, is about 10 km wide and has a min. height difference between its floor and rim of ca. 1650 m.
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Why use a fetch copter instead of a fetch rover?
Since the success of helicopter Ingenuity, the ESA rover for fetching samples was cancelled in favor of a helicopter. Why was that? What are the advantages.
user49774
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How can you warm up Mars?
Mars experience extreme temperatures. Highest temperature being 21 degree celsius.
So if we are to terraform mars one day then we first need to warm it up. So any ideas on how to warm up mars?
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What will be the most cost-effective way to remove and collect the subsurface ice on Mars?
From NASA's Treasure Map for Water Ice on Mars:
"You wouldn't need a backhoe to dig up this ice. You could use a shovel," said the paper's lead author, Sylvain Piqueux from NASA's Jet ...
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Equations evaluating engine performance
What kind of equation would best evaluate a rocket engine's performance in foreign atmospheres such as Mars?
Does it matter that specific impulse does not consider air resistance? Should I focus on ...
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Why hasn’t SpaceX sent anything to Mars yet?
SpaceX has the rockets to send some payload to Mars. The Falcon heavy can carry up to 16.8 tons to Mars according to this answer: Why can Falcon Heavy bring 4.2 times as much mass to Mars than F9, but ...
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Which were the more than 60 (!) candidate locations for the Mars 2020 rover?
Four years ago I asked for the 21 potential landing sites for the Mars 2020 mission in this question, but now I've learned that there were more than 60 candidate locations !
From NASA Announces ...
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What will be more important for the first NASA led human mission to Mars, the exploration of important science targets or the mining of water ice?
A few months after NASA's decision in November 2018 that Jezero Crater would be the landing site for the Mars 2020 rover mission, the research article The Geology and Astrobiology of McLaughlin Crater,...
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How to protect Mars/Moon mission crews against meteors?
Humans are expected to return to the Moon (see Artemis) and maybe go to Mars (see this and this) within a decade or two.
Meteors frequently strike the surface of both the Moon and Mars (one can't ...
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How much memory did the Opportunity rover have (in bytes)? [closed]
How many GB/TB of memory did Opportunity have in total? How much of it was used during the mission?
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Why are Moon Rockets (Saturn V, N1) so much bigger than the Titan IIIE?
In what little knowledge of space and rockets I have, it seems to me that the further the object your aiming for, the more fuel you’ll need, and the bigger engines you’ll need. Having compared the ...
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How is the temperature of motors used in robotic arm and wheels maintained in a martian rover
The electronic components of the mar's rover are protected from external extreme temperatures with the help of WEB warm electronic box. But what about the motors(which is also an electronic component) ...
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Mars crewed trip - earliest year technology was available?
With the technology built for the Moon landings, would it have been possible to send people to Mars?
If no, what would have been the earliest year technology would have been available?
@Fred said '...
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Cold-tolerant Mars electronics
For humans Mars isn't cold: there is little atmosphere to remove the waste heat from metabolism and life support equipment.
But for electronics lacking an RTG, heat loss is a problem. Ingenuity, being ...
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Could a human in a spacesuit survive a Skycrane landing on Mars?
As the question says. Could a human in an appropriate space suit survive the forces, temperatures etc they would experience during the atmospheric entry, parachute descent and skycrane landing as used ...
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What is the minimum transfer time for Earth/Mars cycler and still remain balllistic?
The classic Aldrin cycler doesn’t require onboard fuel when accounting for both earth and mars gravity assists. Which is fantastic. But it has a transfer time of roughly 5 months out to Mars. We ...
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What does LMO mean?
I know that LEO means low Earth orbit. I thought that LMO would mean low Mars orbit, but my friend said it means low Mercury orbit. Does LMO mean low Mars orbit, low Mercury orbit, none of those or ...
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Will Starship get refueled in Mars orbit?
The current plans of Spacex is to have Starship get refueled in LEO and then fly to Mars and refuel it there on the ground. Will Starship also have to get refuel while it is in orbit around Mars on it'...
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Why are cone shaped heat shields used for Mars entry?
Heat shields used for Earth reentry are usually curved but heat shields used for Mars’ entry are coned shaped. Why is this?
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What is the distance between Mars and the lagrange point L2 Mars Sun? [duplicate]
I am writing a science fiction novel that is more soft that hard sci fi but I would like to know at least an estimat of the distances between L2 Mars Sun and Mars. I know that asking for an exact ...
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