Interplanetary Travel

The photo above is where I want to someday go. Yup, that red, lifeless ball of rust, 54.6 million kilometers away. It is not isolation I seek, but the feeling of knowing that I have expanded the horizons of humanity, and the possibilities of Mars colonies. Just to imagine being able to see the earth from afar already boggles my mind, but to me 54 million kilometers away takes it to the extreme. Theoretically, the hardest part of the trip there would be the trip in space, because you are in deep space for 300 days without dying. Once you are on the Mars surface, you wouldn't be there for very long, because you have to bring all of your supplies, which is limited by the size of the ship.

Previously, we have sent many other things to Mars, including rovers, landers, and satellites. Above is the Opportunity Rover (above, left), whose mission was supposed to last 30 days, but when on for 15 years. It lost connection and shut down after a planet-wide dust storm cut off the light to its solar panels, so it couldn't get power, and died. It's last message to Earth was "My batteries are low and it's getting dark", as tweeted by science reporter, Jacob Margolis. Opportunity's companion rover, Spirit, died much earlier. Another rover is on mars with the two dead other ones, called Curiosity (above, right). Loss of solar power will not kill Curiosity though, because instead of solar panels, Curiosity is powered by an MMRTP (Multi-Missions Radioscope Thermoelectric Generator), which relies on the heat generated by the decay of a large chunk of plutonium dioxide, a very radioactive substance. So because of the MMRTP, the Curiosity rover could never die due to loss of sunlight, but it can lose radio connections to Earth.