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Mars is hard. Enough atmosphere to burn you, but not to easily slow you down. Landing on the Earth and the Moon are both easier (as I understand it).
by PopeDotNinja 6y ago
Mars is hard. Enough atmosphere to burn you, but not to easily slow you down. Landing on the Earth and the Moon are both easier (as I understand it).
- m4rtink 6y agoIt depends - any atmosphere is a huge boon as long as your spacecraft can do aerobraking in any form. You can use it to change your orbit, capture into orbit from an interplanetary trajectory or even change the plane of your orbit as it was envisioned for some mission profiles of the Space shuttle or Dyna-Soar. There are nice tables at Project RHO illustration how much delta-v you can save by aerobreaking when traveling between Solar System bodies: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/appmissiontable.php http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/appmissiontable... You loose all of that for an airless body like the Moon. In this case it's not that big of an issue as moon is close & has a low gravity. If Mars was airless, it could be much more of an issue, as you are coming much more quickly from an interplanetary trajectory & there would be more gravity to handle during landing than on the Moon.
- Symmetry 6y agoIf you have enough delta-v to land on a hypothetical Mars without an atmosphere you've got enough to slow down for a gentle atmospheric entry that wouldn't burn you up. In terms of technical design creating a lightweight craft that can aerobrake to land on Mars is harder than the heavyweight craft that could do an airless powered landing. But once you factor in the booster requirements suddenly the atmosphere is making your job easier overall.