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Loading contentWhat 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.