joseph Roche (25)

Come back Joseph Roche all is forgiven

Kok to his friends

mars above all places

maybe he wants to get away from the ex forever

A few years ago I listened to a radio interview with an astro physicist who was retiring after a lifetime in the space industry. He was being asked about this Mars mission. As I listened to him I started to wonder about the moon 'landings'. I thought that if I asked him the right question in the right way, considering he was retiring, he might give me an answer that would shed light on the moon 'landings'. So I emailed him and put it to him that a manned mission to Mars would not be possible at present, as far as I understood it, because for humans to pass through one and a half hours of Van Allen belt ratiation they would need to be in a spacecraft that was several inches thick with lead. I didn't really expect an answer but fair play to him he wrote back. He said I was right, that the spacecraft available at the moment would not allow for humans to pass through the Van Allen belts on a Mars mission without serious health problems or death but that in the coming decades they hoped to make advances in that area.

I wonder if this will go ahead in 11 years time or are they only blowing smoke? It's a one way mission alright if they don't get some material to protect them from the Van Allen belts. They'll be bald and baked before they hit the moon.

He was American but as he was kind enough to answer me I won't say any more. I knew it was never going to be 'proof'. I just wanted to ask the question that he would know what I was asking and could answer in a way that I could understand. He worked on all the Apollo missions.