What stops us from getting to Mars any faster?

 What stops us from getting to Mars any faster?

Well it’s mainly the technology. Our technology isn’t advanced enough to get to Mars faster. The fastest time for getting to Mars, is about 39 days. This was the space craft that was designed to go to Pluto and explore it. It left the Earth at a whopping 36,000 mph.


Of course, there is also this problem. The distance between two planets isn’t a straight line. Traveling through the farthest passing of Earth and Mars would involve a trip directly through the sun, while spacecraft must of necessity move in orbit around the solar system's star.


Although this isn't a problem for the closest approach, when the planets are on the same side of the sun, there is yet another problem. The numbers also assume that the two planets remain at a constant distance; that is, when a probe is launched from Earth while the two planets are at the closest approach, Mars would remain the same distance away over the course of the 39 days it took the probe to travel. But in reality, the planets are constatnly in orbit around the sun. Engineers must calculate the orbits in order to send a spacecraft from Earth to Mars. There is also the problem of fuel efficiency. Like throwing a dart at a moving target, they must calculate where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives, not where it is when it leaves Earth. Spaceships must also decelerate to enter orbit around a new planet to avoid overshooting it.


Hopefully, we can overcome these difficulties soon. It will be exciting to see how the future of space exploration will turn out!

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