Space Travel: What It Takes for a Safe Journey to Mars

Staying in space for months or years has its consequences: muscle dwindles, radiation damages cells and Weightlessness should hit the brain. This is the long journey to Mars Not good conditions. In a study in “Space Weather”, Yuri Shprits and his team explain how the risks It can be minimized at least.

The journey to Mars takes about nine months: it takes about a year and a half there and back. If one considers a research stay of several months on our neighbour, the expedition must still be below the time limit that Shprits and Co calculated for a relatively safe voyage. Only when the journey takes more than four years does the risk of radiation damage increase dramatically.

To this end, however, two other aspects must be taken into account: it is necessary to have good radiation protection on the spaceship, which protects the crew from charged particles and high-energy cosmic radiation. Flight timing also helps reduce health risks. The best way to start the mission is when the sun reaches its peak activity: the solar maximum. Then the powerful solar wind ensures that the most dangerous particles are shielded from other galaxies.

So space ships need good radiation protection. But scientists write that it should not be heavily shielded to prevent secondary radiation that could occur inside the aircraft.