2019-06-01_All_About_Space

Could astronauts ever

land on the surface of

Mars’ moon Phobos?

Not Phobos, because it doesn’t have much gravity, so it wouldn’t be

practical to colonise. Popular opinion is that Phobos and Deimos

are actually captured asteroids, so we could use them for other

things instead of setting up a base. We could do Mars sample-return

missions from either moon because there is debris from Mars on

them. This is because over billions of years Mars shot up debris

from the surface thanks to now-dormant or extinct volcanoes and

meteorite impacts, so scientists think we could find samples of Mars

on the surface of Phobos and Deimos, using robots to search for them.

Another reason scientists want to go to the moons is to better

understand asteroids. One of the discussions we’ve had in the US

for over a decade now is whether we should stop at an asteroid

before going to Mars, and if you go to Phobos or Deimos you’re

killing two birds with one stone – they are asteroids where you can

learn about both Mars and about small asteroidal bodies. To land a

robot on Phobos you would need some kind of system of harpoons

and drills like the lander on the Rosetta probe had and to do a lot of

thruster moves as there isn’t enough gravity to land like you would

on Mars.

Chris Carberry is the executive director and co-founder of

Explore Mars Inc, a non-profit organisation that was

created to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars

within the next two decades © NASA / J L Caltech ; eter and Zabransky

“I think the perfect duration for a spaceflight is somewhere on

the order of two-and-a-half to three months”

@spaceanswers /AllAboutSpaceMagazine [email protected]

What’s it like spending

a year in space?

With the usual six-month stay you can kind of see the end and you

think, “Okay, I launched in October and I’m coming back in March; I

can envision getting there.” But when you launch in March and you’re

thinking about coming back the next March, it is not something

that you can really comprehend. I think the perfect duration for a

spacef light is somewhere on the order of two-and-a-half to three

months. When you get to [that stage] you think, “I’ve really been here

for a long time.” To know that you have nine months to go is kind of

hard to get your head around. As far as coming back, I was kind of

surprised [at] how I felt different physically than the last time with

regards to muscle soreness and joint pain, and then there is

the skin issue.

Scott Kelly is a former NASA astronaut

SPACE EXPLORATION

SPACE EXPLORATION Phobos

orbits 6,000

kilometres

(3,700 miles)

from the

Martian

surface

©NA

SA / J

PL Caltech ;

Peter and Zabransky

Kelly has spent

a total of 520

days in space,

including a

year on the ISS

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