Spanish Students Design Viable Manned Missions To Mars

SPANISH students design viable manned mission to Mars

A group of talented youngsters from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) have designed three manned missions that could realistically make it to Mars. The students, all studying Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering under the tutorship of Professor Miguel Sureda, have designed the space vehicles, complete with the necessary technology for them to safely land on the red planet.

The professor told Spanish news outlet ABC that the engineering students “during their training, must understand and learn formulas, equations, theorems and the entire set of scientific language” and, throughout their professional lives, “they must transform it into technological solutions”.

In groups of three, the students were challenged with designing a vehicle that could transport astronauts into space and allow them to safely remain there. Incredibly, they came up with not just one, but three unique designs that really could do the job on one of the most inhospitable planets in the solar system.

One of the bright students, Lorena Tortajada, explained that her spacecraft “could transport three astronauts and would reach Mars after six months of space travel.” Yet another group designed a vehicle for up to three people “who would travel to Mars for about 200 days in a spacecraft similar to the one built in the framework of the Apollo space programs.”

It would appear that some of the brightest minds in Spain continue to take a special interest in outer space, and a group of scientists from the Costa del Sol have previously been heavily involved in NASA’s Mars missions.

A team from the UMA Laserlab, led by Professor Javier Laserna, based in the University of Malaga, are playing a very active role in the NASA mission to Mars.

Professor Laserna’s Laserlab houses a high-tech instrument known as a Supercam, which will transmit sound waves and data of Perseverance’s impact with rocks and minerals from the surface of the red planet back to Earth, where they will then be reproduced in the UMA’s simulation chamber.