[Cet article est extrait de notre cahier “Courrier Ados”, paru le 20 juillet et vendu avec le numéro estival de “Courrier international”, en kiosque jusqu’au 9 août.]
“Nasa could take advantage of unique planetary alignment in 2033 to send its first manned mission into orbit around Mars and return to Venus”, reports the page for the American newspaper Forbes. The trip would take a total of “only” five hundred and seventy days, compared to eight hundred to a thousand if the start occurred at a time when Earth and Mars are aligned differently. And this, including an overview of the planet named in honor of the Roman goddess of love.
“In terms of the amount of energy and fuel needed to reach Mars, this is a unique opportunity that only comes around every fifteen years,” insisted Matt Duggan, head of operations management at Boeing, at the 2023 Humans To Mars summit (“humans to Mars”) held in May in Washington.
This mission would be the first ever to see humans venture this far into our solar system. But the crew did not want to set foot on the red planet’s soil immediately. For that we would have to wait until 2037 at best.
Before 2040
This program, described in an article in Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets however, does not quite correspond to the US space agency’s official position. According to her, it is a goal to plan to set foot on Mars in 2040 “aggressive” And “highlighted”, specify the specialized site Space.
Before then, we need to make sure we are able to return to our own natural satellite and live there for a few months – which is planned for 2025, as part of the Artemis mission. The Moon could thus serve as an intermediate base before considering more distant and therefore longer journeys. NASA also plans to use the future space station, called “Gateway,” which will orbit the Moon, to house humans and simulate Mars missions there.
The fact is that without waiting to set foot on our satellite again in two years or on Mars in 2040, there are already people in space. As you read these lines, ten men, spread over two space stations (seven in the International Station and three in the Chinese station Tiangong), are constantly rotating more than 400 kilometers around our planet Earth.
