Understanding Deep-Space Human Exploration
What it takes to send people beyond Earth to stay — the bases, transit habitats, power and propulsion of the Moon-to-Mars campaign, and the hard human challenges of radiation, isolation, and self-sufficiency far from home. Built on well-established plans and physics; nothing is fabricated.
- 3.1The deep-space radiation challengeThe hardest unsolved problem of a Mars mission.
- 3.2Long-duration life supportClosing the loop for a voyage with no resupply.
- 3.3Earth independence & crew autonomyMaking decisions without waiting for Earth.
- 3.4Behavioural health & crew cohesionKeeping a small crew healthy and working together.
Related entities
- Exploration architecture
The Moon-to-Mars Architecture
The strategy of returning to the Moon first, and using it as a proving ground for the systems and skills needed to send crews to Mars. Under this integrated approach the Artemis missions and the Lunar Gateway are steps toward a longer campaign, testing habitats, life support, and surface operations close to home before the far harder journey to Mars.
- Exploration architecture
The Deep-Space Transit Habitat
The spacecraft in which a crew lives during the months-long cruise between worlds. Cut off from resupply and beyond the protection of Earth's magnetic field, a transit habitat must recycle nearly all its air and water, shield its crew from radiation, and keep them healthy and sane across interplanetary distances.
- Deep-space challenge
The Deep-Space Radiation Challenge
Beyond the shelter of Earth's magnetic field, crews are exposed to a steady sleet of galactic cosmic rays and the sudden violence of solar particle events. This radiation raises long-term cancer risk and can damage the nervous system, and shielding against the most energetic particles is one of the hardest unsolved problems of sending humans to Mars.
- Deep-space challenge
Long-Duration Life Support
On the Space Station, water and air can be topped up from Earth; on a multi-year voyage to Mars there is no resupply. Life support must therefore recycle almost everything — reclaiming water from every source and regenerating oxygen — and may ultimately grow food, closing the loop far more tightly than any system flown so far.