UNMANNED MISSIONS
Mars is extremely far away. In order to get to Mars quickly, missions must be launched in two year increments. This is when Mars is the closest to the Earth. It usually takes from 6-12 months to travel to Mars. There are two main ways of getting to Mars. The first is to go directly, leaving Earth when the planets are closest to each other. The only problem with this approach is that it requires a huge amount of energy and money. Its main advantage is that if the crew members dont like each other the mission is kept short. The image below (left) shows the quick, yet expensive route. Click on it for a larger more detailed version.
The second way results in a low cost mission. This mission
would use the least amount of energy, yet it would take a much longer time.
For this mission, the crew would leave Earth and travel to Mars in the same
manner as the quickest trip to Mars, but the crew would then stay on the
surface for more than an Earth year which could be dangerous. The mission
would be even longer than the biosphere experiments. This image (above right)
shows the most cost effective way to travel to Mars. Note, the extremely
long time the scientists would have to stay on Mars. Click on the image
on the right for a larger version.
