Canadian ex-astronaut claims NASA and SpaceX rockets can't send humans to Mars

Several risk factors are blocking the path of the Mars mission, that includes humans.

Life on Mars
Mars surface Pixabay

Chris Hadfield, a top astronaut who retired from the Canadian Space Agency said that the rockets developed by the Nasa and SpaceX would not be able to take people to Mars.

In a recent talk with the Business Insider, Hadfield revealed that the likelihood of the Mars missions, that includes humans, is very unlikely. The retired astronaut added that the safety risks including explosions, radiations and starvation will be too high while carrying humans to the red planet.

"Personally, I don't think any of those three rockets is taking people to Mars. I don't think those are a practical way to send people to Mars because they're dangerous and it takes too long," he said.

As per Hadfield, sending people to Mars is very dangerous and the entire mission takes a lot of time, including an additional risk factor. Hadfield revealed that the technology, which helped NASA to reach the moon is enough and more to take people to Mars, but " a majority of the astronauts that we send would not make it.''

The former astronaut revealed that liquid fuel rockets which are being currently developed by NASA and SpaceX still possess a risk to the astronauts even though the applied technology is very advanced.

Hadfield suggested the use of advanced methods like ion propulsion, nuclear power and the manipulation of gravity to make the Mars mission safer and effective. However, all these technologies are still in its early stages of development and more time is required to implement it in real life. He also asked space agencies to send robots to Mars first so that humans will get a better understanding of the red planet, that too without harming an astronaut's life.

However, the South Africa born billionaire Elon Musk had previously said that the Mars colonization will happen in the near future. He even made it clear that the government on the red planet will be based on direct democracy.

This article was first published on June 18, 2018
Related topics : Nasa Spacex Elon musk Space
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