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Artist's concept of humans on Mars.
HOUSTON—A committee assembled to develop a science strategy for the future human exploration of Mars outlined its priorities during its first virtual town hall on Sept. 19.
The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) panel also acknowledged the mission’s extreme challenges and received initial comments during the meeting.
NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration strategy is counting on lessons learned from establishing a sustainable human presence at the Moon with an evolving Artemis program architecture to set the stage for human expeditions to Mars. The long-term deep space exploration effort is to be sustained by three pillars: science, U.S. national posture and inspiration, the panel said.
“What we are doing is identifying the priority science objectives across all relative disciplines that are targeted for the first Mars campaign,” said Dava Newman, a co-chair of the NASEM study committee. The panel’s membership includes representatives from academia, industry and government. The Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars study committee said it is focused on four areas: geological science; astrobiology; atmospheric science and space physics; and biological and physical sciences and human factors.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) aerospace engineer and former NASA deputy administrator, Newman was joined by co-chair Lindy Elkins-Tanton to outline the study priorities. Elkins-Tanton is an author, planetary scientist, and co-founder of Beagle Learning, a technology company.
Goals include identifying the highest science priorities that can be addressed by human explorers; identifying the types of samples and measurements that will be necessary; identifying a subset of the priorities that could be achieved with the first three human Mars landings; establishing criteria for the future selection of landing sites; identifying the needed equipment to achieve the objectives, and recognizing likely associated changes in technology.
Other priorities include a discussion of the criteria and metrics used to assign the priorities and providing a description of the links between the Mars science objectives and those in the upcoming human Moon operations. These include the lunar-orbiting, human-tended Gateway space station and research aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
“That is the overarching part of the statement of task,” said Elkins-Tanton, referring to the identification of key synergies between the Moon and Mars human science exploration objectives.
During the public comment session of the virtual town hall, Scott Hubbard raised a concern he described as bridging a cultural gap between the scientific community and human exploration.
Hubbard is a former director of the agency’s Ames Research Center, creator and project manager of NASA’s late-1990s Mars Pathfinder mission, and author of the book “Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery.”
The gap remains evident, he noted, in the uncertain status of NASA’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The complex and costly initiative is to return samples to Earth from the Jezero Crater on Mars that are being gathered by the Perseverance Mars rover.
The samples are to be studied with advanced technologies to determine whether Mars once hosted biological activity. A reassessment of the MSR was initiated after an independent review placed the mission’s cost at between $8 billion and $11 billion under the initial mission plan, with a sample return no earlier than the 2040s.
“I wish to urge the committee to take a big hand to identify clearly the connections between human exploration and a science mission like sample return so that the science pillar of Moon to Mars can be fully realized,” Hubbard said. “In short, acknowledge the significant programmatic benefits from sample analysis that will accrue to human spaceflight and the Moon to Mars initiative.”
A second NASEM town hall on how humans can best contribute to the scientific exploration of Mars is planned for Oct. 28.
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