Destination Space!

When it comes to space, many countries are competing to visit Mars. The United States, China, and the United Arab Emirates all launched unmanned spacecraft to the Red Planet earlier this year.

The U.S. space agency NASA sent a rover called Perseverance. That was part of its larger goal to send a crew of astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.

When Perseverance arrives on Mars in February, it will explore a crater that experts think once held a lake. It also will try to draw out oxygen from the atmosphere. The rover will even help determine what the first humans to the planet should wear.

Perseverance is carrying five pieces of spacesuit material. These include a swatch of flame-resistant fabric and a piece of shatterproof polycarbonate. Polycarbonate is used in astronauts’ helmets to block out ultraviolet light.

NASA engineers know they need to design the safest spacesuit possible to protect human explorers on Mars. The planet is ice-cold. Its average temperature is -80 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere is also thin, so there is less protection from the sun’s radiation. (Exposure to increased radiation could put astronauts at risk for cancer.)

Scientists will keep careful watch on the materials aboard Perseverance to find out whether the materials can withstand such harsh elements.

“The Mars missions that we’ll eventually send humans on are going to be more challenging than any we’ve ever tried before,” says Amy Ross. She is a NASA spacesuit engineer. By testing materials on the planet, Ross says, “we can understand how they hold up—or don’t—in that environment.”

A number of nations’ space agencies are shooting for the moon. In 2019, China became the first nation to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon. It vows to send humans to the lunar surface by 2030. Russia has plans to one day form a colony on the moon.

Still, the U.S. remains the only country to have sent humans to walk on the lunar surface. NASA is now preparing to make history again. In 2024, it plans to send two astronauts there, including the first woman, as part of its Artemis program.

Among the candidates in the running for the job is NASA astronaut Christina Koch. She lived aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a giant laboratory that orbits Earth. (See “Life in Space,” below.)

The astronauts on the U.S. mission will land on the moon’s south pole. Frozen water was recently detected there. The crew will search for that water, which experts say will be key to carrying out human missions in space.

How so? The main parts of water are hydrogen and oxygen. They are essential elements for producing rocket fuel. If NASA can figure out a way to make fuel on the moon, spacecraft could refuel there. That would let astronauts travel in space for longer periods and perhaps even stay there permanently.

“The key to living on the moon is water—the same as here on Earth,” says Daniel Andrews, a NASA engineer. “The question now is if the moon could really contain the amount of resources we need to live.”

Venus has an atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide and average temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit. It is one of the last places experts would expect to find life.

That is why researchers were shocked recently to discover a gas in the planet’s atmosphere that they say shows the presence of microorganisms in the clouds. (Microorganisms are living things, such as bacteria, that are too small to be seen.)

The gas is called phosphine. It is found on Earth in the intestines of some animals. Researchers detected the gas on Venus using telescopes, but the only way to find out what is really there is to send spacecraft to Venus to investigate.

A company in New Zealand called Rocket Lab could lead such a mission.

Rocket Lab plans to launch a spacecraft to Venus as early as 2023. As the spacecraft flies by the planet, it will release a small probe into the atmosphere where phosphine was detected. The probe will take readings of Venus’s clouds. It will beam that information back to the spacecraft before crashing to the planet’s surface.

Peter Beck is Rocket Lab’s founder. He is eager to help shed light on Venus.

“This mission is to go and see if we can find life,” Beck recently told The New York Times. “Obviously, this discovery of phosphine really adds strength to that possibility.”

Why should astronauts have all the excitement? Private companies are closer than ever to sending everyday people to space. Some of these organizations want to colonize our solar system. Some experts say this could be crucial if Earth were ever to become unfit to live on after a disaster such as an asteroid strike. Other organizations simply want to offer “space tourists” an out-of-this-world trip.

One company, SpaceX, is aiming to establish a human settlement on Mars in the next few decades. It is developing reusable rockets as a cost-effective way to power thousands of humans to the Red Planet. These people would live there permanently.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic plans to offer flights through Earth’s atmosphere as early as next year. It is developing rocket-powered spacecraft to send passengers more than 50 miles high.

Even NASA is welcoming people to space. It recently announced that it plans to let private citizens visit the ISS. They would travel to and from the ISS on spacecraft built by SpaceX and Boeing, another company.

Robert Goehlich is a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Berlin, Germany. He is excited that spaceflight may soon become an option for a larger population.

“People who travel to space have a greater perspective on the Earth as a whole,” Goehlich says. “That’s a benefit for all humankind.”