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The Shape of a Mars Mission
“From a mathematics and trajectory standpoint and with a certain kind of technology, there’s not too many different ways to go to Mars. It’s been pretty well figured out.
The moon landings were designed so that any moment the crew could hit the red button and return expeditiously to Earth; engineers spent the brief windows of time when an abort was infeasible chain smoking and chewing on their slide rules. [7] And if they get stuck on Mars, astronauts will find themselves in a similar position to the early Antarctic explorers, able to communicate home by radio, but forced by unalterable cycles of nature to wait months or years for a rescue ship. Other examples of magic Mars technology include leakless seals for spacesuits, waterless washing machines, biofilm-proof coatings, nutritionally complete meals that can be stored for years at room temperature, and autonomous solar-powered factories for turning CO2 into hundreds of tons of methane.
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