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This Tourism Ad for Mars Wraps With a Bleak Jolt of Reality

On Feb. 18, NASA's Perseverance Rover landed on Mars… and immediately began tweeting about it , which made us wonder whether robots deserve to inherit the Earth after all. (We're kidding. Obviously a human team is doing the tweets; Perseverance doesn't care. It's busy off-roading, taking cool pics and collecting rocks to send back home. Vacationing, basically.)

Perseverance's arrival, after seven months of travel, makes the race to put people on Mars feel more urgent. It's not just a NASA or SpaceX ambition; China and the United Arab Emirates are also eyeing the Red Planet. And nobody seems interested in a quickie round-trip, like the Moon landing. Most everybody wants to start a colony there.

A lot of us have complicated feelings about this. It doesn't help that Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, is planning to pack indentured servitude in his colonists' suitcases. Worried you'll miss debt culture when you go? Don't!

Fridays For Future, a climate initiative that launched in 2018, takes a shot at embodying those feelings with "1%," a satirical Mars tourism ad.

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Created by Fred & Farid Los Angeles, the ad begins with an aspirational voiceover: "After more than 5 million years of human existence on Earth, it's time for a change. Mars: 56 million square miles of untouched land, breathtaking landscapes and incredible views." You have to look at it from a certain angle—the opposite of Elon's, really—to feel the irony in its premise. 

It ends with a forbidding statement: "And for the 99 percent who will stay on Earth ... we'd better fix climate change."

Ah, the catch: All these promises of adventure, and escape from our existential woes, will likely be reserved for the few who can afford it. (Unless you're into the whole indentured servitude thing ... and hey, if you've still got school loans, what's a couple million more before you die?)

"We wanted to highlight pure nonsense," said Fridays for Future. "Government-funded space programs and the world's ultra-wealthy 1 percent are laser focused on Mars … and yet most humans will never get a chance to visit or live on Mars. This is not due to a lack of resources, but the fact that our global systems don't care about us and refuse to take equitable action."

To drive that point home, the organization points out that NASA's Perseverance Rover cost $2.7 billion for development, launch, operations and analysis. While we're hard-pressed to begrudge NASA a budget at the worst of times, it's hard to look at that figure and think about the fact that we still haven't figured out recycling.

The ad went live on Feb. 18, the day Perseverance landed on Mars. Contrast this date with another one, just a smidge down the road: Elon Musk is "highly confident" that SpaceX will get people there by 2026. (Though if that projection is anything like his Tesla ones, feel free to add 5-10 years to that with confidence.)

This marks Fred & Farid LA's third collaboration with Fridays For Future. It follows "House on Fire" and "If You Don't Believe in Global Warming, How About Local Warming?" The hope, in this case, is that some bleak sci-fi will finally be what motivates people to action.

Tell that to Greta Thunberg.

On the other hand, if you'd like some actual sci-fi with a spin on what happens to everybody on Earth when all the Well-Heeled People leave, we recommend N.K. Jemisin's Emergency Skin. (Bonus points: Buy it at a Black-owned bookstore. Thanks to Oprah, you can find one by state .) It's short and surprisingly optimistic—so optimistic that we actually worry the most exploitative wealthyfolk will instead choose to stay, which in our minds seems increasingly likely. 

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Mars – the fourth planet from the Sun – is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. This dynamic planet has seasons, polar ice caps, extinct volcanoes, canyons and weather.

Introduction

Mars is one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, and it's the only planet where we've sent rovers to roam the alien landscape. NASA missions have found lots of evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer, with a thicker atmosphere, billions of years ago.

Mars was named by the Romans for their god of war because its reddish color was reminiscent of blood. The Egyptians called it "Her Desher," meaning "the red one."

Even today, it is frequently called the "Red Planet" because iron minerals in the Martian dirt oxidize, or rust, causing the surface to look red.

Mars was named by the ancient Romans for their god of war because its reddish color was reminiscent of blood. Other civilizations also named the planet for this attribute – for example, the Egyptians called it "Her Desher," meaning "the red one." Even today, it is frequently called the "Red Planet" because iron minerals in the Martian dirt oxidize, or rust, causing the surface to look red.

Potential for Life

Scientists don't expect to find living things currently thriving on Mars. Instead, they're looking for signs of life that existed long ago, when Mars was warmer and covered with water.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 2,106 miles (3,390 kilometers), Mars is about half the size of Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Mars would be about as big as a raspberry.

From an average distance of 142 million miles (228 million kilometers), Mars is 1.5 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 13 minutes to travel from the Sun to Mars.

Orbit and Rotation

As Mars orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 24.6 hours, which is very similar to one day on Earth (23.9 hours). Martian days are called sols – short for "solar day." A year on Mars lasts 669.6 sols, which is the same as 687 Earth days.

Mars' axis of rotation is tilted 25 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. This is another similarity with Earth, which has an axial tilt of 23.4 degrees. Like Earth, Mars has distinct seasons, but they last longer than seasons here on Earth since Mars takes longer to orbit the Sun (because it's farther away). And while here on Earth the seasons are evenly spread over the year, lasting 3 months (or one quarter of a year), on Mars the seasons vary in length because of Mars' elliptical, egg-shaped orbit around the Sun.

Spring in the northern hemisphere (autumn in the southern) is the longest season at 194 sols. Autumn in the northern hemisphere (spring in the southern) is the shortest at 142 days. Northern winter/southern summer is 154 sols, and northern summer/southern winter is 178 sols.

Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos , that may be captured asteroids. They're potato-shaped because they have too little mass for gravity to make them spherical.

The moons get their names from the horses that pulled the chariot of the Greek god of war, Ares.

Phobos, the innermost and larger moon, is heavily cratered, with deep grooves on its surface. It is slowly moving towards Mars and will crash into the planet or break apart in about 50 million years.

Deimos is about half as big as Phobos and orbits two and a half times farther away from Mars. Oddly-shaped Deimos is covered in loose dirt that often fills the craters on its surface, making it appear smoother than pockmarked Phobos.

Go farther. Explore the Moons of Mars ›

Mars has no rings. However, in 50 million years when Phobos crashes into Mars or breaks apart, it could create a dusty ring around the Red Planet.

When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4.5 billion years ago, Mars formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become the fourth planet from the Sun. Mars is about half the size of Earth, and like its fellow terrestrial planets, it has a central core, a rocky mantle, and a solid crust.

Mars has a dense core at its center between 930 and 1,300 miles (1,500 to 2,100 kilometers) in radius. It's made of iron, nickel, and sulfur. Surrounding the core is a rocky mantle between 770 and 1,170 miles (1,240 to 1,880 kilometers) thick, and above that, a crust made of iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. This crust is between 6 and 30 miles (10 to 50 kilometers) deep.

The Red Planet is actually many colors. At the surface, we see colors such as brown, gold, and tan. The reason Mars looks reddish is due to oxidization – or rusting – of iron in the rocks, regolith (Martian “soil”), and dust of Mars. This dust gets kicked up into the atmosphere and from a distance makes the planet appear mostly red.

Interestingly, while Mars is about half the diameter of Earth, its surface has nearly the same area as Earth’s dry land. Its volcanoes, impact craters, crustal movement, and atmospheric conditions such as dust storms have altered the landscape of Mars over many years, creating some of the solar system's most interesting topographical features.

A large canyon system called Valles Marineris is long enough to stretch from California to New York – more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers). This Martian canyon is 200 miles (320 kilometers) at its widest and 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) at its deepest. That's about 10 times the size of Earth's Grand Canyon .

Mars is home to the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons. It's three times taller than Earth's Mt. Everest with a base the size of the state of New Mexico.

Mars appears to have had a watery past, with ancient river valley networks, deltas, and lakebeds, as well as rocks and minerals on the surface that could only have formed in liquid water. Some features suggest that Mars experienced huge floods about 3.5 billion years ago.

There is water on Mars today, but the Martian atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for long on the surface. Today, water on Mars is found in the form of water-ice just under the surface in the polar regions as well as in briny (salty) water, which seasonally flows down some hillsides and crater walls.

Mars has a thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon gases. To our eyes, the sky would be hazy and red because of suspended dust instead of the familiar blue tint we see on Earth. Mars' sparse atmosphere doesn't offer much protection from impacts by such objects as meteorites, asteroids, and comets.

The temperature on Mars can be as high as 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) or as low as about -225 degrees Fahrenheit (-153 degrees Celsius). And because the atmosphere is so thin, heat from the Sun easily escapes this planet. If you were to stand on the surface of Mars on the equator at noon, it would feel like spring at your feet (75 degrees Fahrenheit or 24 degrees Celsius) and winter at your head (32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius).

Occasionally, winds on Mars are strong enough to create dust storms that cover much of the planet. After such storms, it can be months before all of the dust settles.

Magnetosphere

Mars has no global magnetic field today, but areas of the Martian crust in the southern hemisphere are highly magnetized, indicating traces of a magnetic field from 4 billion years ago.

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Trips to Mars in 39 Days

[/caption] Using traditional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars – at quickest — lasts 6 months. But a new rocket tested successfully last week could potentially cut down travel time to the Red Planet to just 39 days. The Ad Astra Rocket Company tested a plasma rocket called the VASIMR VX-200 engine, which ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. “It’s the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now,” says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has also signed an agreement with NASA to test a 200-kilowatt VASIMR engine on the International Space Station in 2013. The tests on the ISS would provide periodic boosts to the space station, which gradually drops in altitude due to atmospheric drag. ISS boosts are currently provided by spacecraft with conventional thrusters, which consume about 7.5 tons of propellant per year. By cutting this amount down to 0.3 tons, Chang-Diaz estimates that VASIMR could save NASA millions of dollars per year.

Plasma, or ion engines uses radio waves to heat gases such as hydrogen, argon, and neon, creating hot plasma. Magnetic fields force the charged plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction.

They provide much less thrust at a given moment than do chemical rockets, which means they can’t break free of the Earth’s gravity on their own. Plus, ion engines only work in a vacuum. But once in space, they can give a continuous push for years, like wind pushing a sailboat, accelerating gradually until the vehicle is moving faster than chemical rockets. They only produce a pound of thrust, but in space that’s enough to move 2 tons of cargo.

Due to the high velocity that is possible, less fuel is required than in conventional engines.

Dawn’s engines have a specific impulse of 3100 seconds and a thrust of 90 mNewtons. A chemical rocket on a spacecraft might have a thrust of up to 500 Newtons, and a specific impulse of less than 1000 seconds.

The VASIMR has 4 Newtons of thrust (0.9 pounds) with a specific impulse of about 6,000 seconds.

The VASIMR has two additional important features that distinguish it from other plasma propulsion systems. It has the ability to vary the exhaust parameters (thrust and specific impulse) in order to optimally match mission requirements. This results in the lowest trip time with the highest payload for a given fuel load.

In addition, VASIMR has no physical electrodes in contact with the plasma, prolonging the engine’s lifetime and enabling a higher power density than in other designs.

VASIMR could also be adapted to handle the high payloads of robotic missions, and propel cargo missions with a very large payload mass fraction. Trip times and payload mass are major limitations of conventional and nuclear thermal rockets because of their inherently low specific impulse.

Chang-Diaz has been working on the development of the VASIMR concept since 1979, before founding Ad Astra in 2005 to further develop the project.

Source: PhysOrg

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15 Replies to “Trips to Mars in 39 Days”

“in space ion engines have a velocity ten times that of chemical rockets”

Exhaust velocity, I guess.

“the VASIMR has two additional important features that distinguish it from other plasma propulsion systems. It has the ability to vary the exhaust parameters (thrust and specific impulse) in order to optimally match mission requirements”

Point 1) Why, oh why would one choose a LOWER Specific Impulse?

Point 2) Yes, it could make it to Mars in 39 days ASSUMMING an engine 100 times larger AND a nuclear reactor! If you’re going to base your 39 day trip on non-existent technologies, why not a 20 minute trip and assume we have a rocket that can accelerate to the speed of light? (aim high I say!)

Negatives aside, I think an Ion engine may be a good fit for ISS reboosts and was an interesting article.

That means that 1 kg can be accelerated to a speed of 24,000 m/s, or that 24,000 kg can be accelerated to 1 m/s, or somewhere in between….another good thing is that the fuel for this engine is less massive translating into a higher payload. (note, the delta v from LEO to LMO is about 6,100 m/s, meaning that the VASIMR could take a payload of 3.93 kg to Low Mars Orbit).

Mistake, disregard that post of mine above, lol.

So, the true computation is as follows:

Specific Impulse = (6000 s)*(9.81 m/s^2)*(1 kg/1000g) = 58.860 newton-seconds imparted on the ship per gram of ion propellent

If the VASIMR delivers 4 newtons of thrust, then it is burning fuel at a rate of:

(58.860 n-s/g)(dm/dt) = 4 newtons

dm/dt = 0.068 grams/second

The amount of energy being burned by this ion propulsion process in a vacuum is as follows:

(4 newtons)*(V exhaust) ~ 201 kilowatts

so therefore V exhaust ~ 50,250 m/sec ~ specific impulse, right?

a new rocket tested successfully

More like a rocket engine, and it wasn’t tested in drift conditions (i.e. vacuum of space).

Speaking of which, Google Fast Flip aggregate made me aware today of Popular Mechanics (which I don’t read) article on a similar helicon design from MIT, which is tested in drift condition.

“NASA developed a similar engine for its Deep Space 1 Mission, launched in 1998, but the new thruster has advantages. To start, NASA employed pricey xenon gas ($13 per liter) excited into plasma by delicate electrical components, while the new design uses nitrogen (5 cents per liter) activated by a rugged radio-frequency antenna. A mag­netic field channels the plasma through a nozzle at a stunning 40 km/sec, an order of magnitude greater than the output of a chemical rocket.”

Why, oh why would one choose a LOWER Specific Impulse?

Because it is faster and making the engine more robust to throttle rf boost than throttling flow (thrust)? Or it was just another gadget in the new toy.

For your other concerns, apparently the engine scales well as seen by the test, that was the prediction going into the 200 kW demonstration.

And as regards power, that too has been demonstrated by scalable nuclear reactor designs such as goes into other vehicles. Nuclear sub reactor sizes goes up to 55 MW, and ice-breaker reactors up to 170 MW. A 90 MW design had a 1.6 m high x 1.0 m radius core @ ~ 80 kg low-enriched fuel. A 170 MW design had ~ 150 kg high-enriched fuel. [Wikipedia]

Perhaps the high-enriched fuel can be used to keep the core size down. Anyway, I don’t see anything untoward here. And as noted on a thread on NASA development on a smallish ~ 40 kW nuclear reactor for a Moon habitation, apparently nuclear reactors have been used in space before.

Besides the proven scalability and space use, existing reactors makes it hard to say whether this technology doesn’t already exist or not.

I think these technologies need to be pushed not necessarily for human missions but for outer-solar system missions. Mars in 29 days? Cool, but what about the fact that this sort of technology potentially makes Neptune and Uranus realistic targets for exploration again? I would literally freak out with joy if they could park a probe in orbit around Neptune and Triton – it is something I dearly hope to see in my lifetime, but technology is going to need to come a long way before that happens. This sort of tech is oxygen to that ember of hope.

Sorry about the unnecessary double negation. Also, I meant to add that a reference to earlier reactors. Here is one:

“While Russia has used over 30 fission reactors in space, the USA has flown only one—the SNAP-10A (System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) in 1965.”

“They only produce a pound of thrust, but in space that’s enough to move 2 tons of cargo.” Why the reference to 2 tons in particular??? Why not 4, or 10, or 200? According to Newton, one pound of thrust can move an arbitrarily large mass. The only difference is that the larger the mass, the less the acceleration.

@Torbjorn Larsson OM: While Russia has used over 30 fission reactors in space, some of them are so poorly shielded that they effectively blind some military and scientific satellites (mainly US satellites) with FUV, X-ray and gamma-ray detectors when they pass nearby. Hopefully most of these will be able to be safely deorbited.

This is all good news. My maths isn’t up to it so tell me, can this rocket do the Hohmann Transfer from Moon orbit to Mars or Moon to Asteroids http://home.att.net/~ntdoug/smplhmn.html

I like what Astrofiend said on this above, I’m so sick of having to wait 10 years or more for a probe to get anywhere in the solar system.

Using tech like this to send probes to deep space could be a very good way to test the technology for human use.

I agree with the deep space missions too. We should have probes orbiting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

I also concur with what Astrofiend said. Let’s get some robotic probes to the outer SS. Sadly, no real exploration is going to happen until we figure out how to at least approach .5C, and even more sadly, it’ll never happen in my lifetime. Still, we’re making progress.

Quantum_Flux: You must divide exhaust velocity by the gravitational acceleration (9.81 m/sec^2) to get specific impulse in seconds. Therefore, 50,250 m/s would yield a specific impulse of 5,122 seconds.

Propulsion systems that use high-speed ejecta to slowly accelerate an object are notoriously energy inefficient; the higher the Isp, the worst the energy efficiency.

A tremendously must better system would employ an electro-dynamic pulse tether. Such tethers are only 1km long and ALL of the acceleration occurs while in earth LEO. If you accelerate an object at 1g for 621 seconds, you will have a delta V of 6,100 m/s, which is sufficient to reach Mars. Since the tether system would do you no good at Mars, you would want to quickly decelerate it before it left LEO and allow the payload to coast all the way to Mars. Such a tether system would require very stocky tethers, very large plasma contactors, and a very big power source (such as a flywheels, supercapacitor, or lithium ion batteries) since every metric ton of vehicle will require 18.6gigajoules (5,200 kWh) at 30MW. A recent study stated a lithium battery could produce 300 kW/kg and flywheels can achieve 1,000 kW/kg.

Comments are closed.

‘For All Mankind’ Season 4 Teaser Recruits Game-Changers to Mars (Video)

The sci-fi drama returns to Apple TV+ on Nov. 10

“ For All Mankind ” finally has an official teaser for Season 4, and it’s clear Helios Aerospace is ramping up recruitment for game-changers to join the independent agency and travel to Mars.

In the teaser for the sci-fi drama series, which will return for its fourth installment on Apple TV+ on Friday, Nov. 10 with subsequent episodes dropping weekly, Helios shows off its global partnerships and loyal recruits who work to “find new hope” for generations to come.

“They say we’re running out of resources, that we won’t be able to fix things,” a booming voice representing Helios said in the teaser. “Well, they don’t know that we are the resources. So when the universe calls, Helios answers.”

Spotlighting beaming smiles on spaceships and on Mars, the ad reassures potential recruits that “We all want to find our place in this universe,” while teasing, “Your destiny awaits.”

The official logline is as follows: “Rocketing into the new millennium in the eight years since Season 3, Happy Valley has rapidly expanded its footprint on Mars by turning former foes into partners. Now 2003, the focus of the space program has turned to the capture and mining of extremely valuable, mineral-rich asteroids that could change the future of both Earth and Mars. But simmering tensions between the residents of the now-sprawling international base threaten to undo everything they are working towards.”

Joel Kinnaman, Wrenn Schmidt, Krys Marshall, Edi Gathegi, Cynthy Wu and Coral Peña return for the fourth season while the show introduces new series regulars Toby Kebbell, Tyner Rushing, Daniel Stern and Svetlana Efremova.

Hailing from Sony Pictures Television, Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert serve as creators and executive producers of “For All Mankind” with Nedivi and Wolpert also serving as showrunners. Additional EPs include David Weddle, Bradley Thompson, Seth Edelstein and Tall Ship Productions’ Maril Davis.

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NASA picks 9 companies to develop Mars 'commercial services' ideas

NASA has selected nine companies to develop concepts that could aid agency science missions to Mars down the road.

The agency is awarding each company between $200,000 and $300,000 for this early-stage work, with the goal of making robotic Mars exploration more efficient and more productive.

"We're in an exciting new era of space exploration, with rapid growth of commercial interest and capabilities," Eric Ianson, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a statement on Wednesday (May 1), when the awards were announced. 

"Now is the right time for NASA to begin looking at how public-private partnerships could support science at Mars in the coming decades," he added.

Related: Mars on the cheap: Scientists working to revolutionize access to the Red Planet

This idea is not new. NASA already does something similar with its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, which has sent agency science gear toward the moon on two private landers.

One of those landers — Intuitive Machines' Nova-C spacecraft, named Odysseus — made it to the lunar surface safely, acing its touchdown this past February. The other one, Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, suffered an anomaly shortly after its January launch and failed to reach the moon as planned.

The "Mars Exploration Commercial Services" program is not nearly as far along as CLPS. NASA released its initial call for proposals on Jan. 29, selecting the newly announced awardees from that pool. The funding will go toward 12-week concept studies, which will wrap up in August.

"These studies could potentially lead to future requests for proposals but do not constitute a NASA commitment," agency officials said in Wednesday's statement.

There are 12 funded studies (three of the nine companies will each develop two different projects), which NASA divides into four categories. Here's a brief description of each, in NASA's words:

Small payload delivery and hosting services

• Lockheed Martin Corporation, Littleton, Colorado — adapt a lunar-exploration spacecraft
• Impulse Space, Inc., Redondo Beach, California — adapt an Earth-vicinity orbital transfer vehicle (space tug)
• Firefly Aerospace, Cedar Park, Texas — adapt a lunar-exploration spacecraft

Large payload delivery and hosting services

• United Launch Services (ULA), LLC, Centennial, Colorado — modify an Earth-vicinity cryogenic upper stage
• Blue Origin , LLC, Kent, Washington — adapt an Earth- and lunar-vicinity spacecraft
• Astrobotic Technology, Inc., Pittsburgh — modify a lunar-exploration spacecraft

Mars surface-imaging services

• Albedo Space Corporation, Broomfield, Colorado — adapt a low Earth orbit imaging satellite
• Redwire Space, Inc., Littleton, Colorado — modify a low Earth orbit commercial imaging spacecraft
• Astrobotic Technology, Inc. — modify a lunar exploration spacecraft to include imaging

Next-generation relay services

• Space Exploration Technologies Corporation ( SpaceX ), Hawthorne, California — adapt Earth-orbit communication satellites for Mars
• Lockheed Martin Corporation — provide communication relay services via a modified Mars orbiter
• Blue Origin, LLC — provide communication relay services via an adapted Earth- and lunar-vicinity spacecraft

NASA also wants private industry to help get pristine Mars samples to Earth, one of the agency's most important science priorities over the next decade or so.

The first phase of that ambitious effort is well underway; the samples are being collected by the car-sized Perseverance rover , which landed inside Mars' Jezero Crater in February 2021. But NASA is overhauling its architecture for getting the samples here, as its original plan has suffered multiple delays and cost overruns.

The agency asked private companies for Mars sample-return ideas earlier this month and plans to start incorporating helpful concepts into a new architecture as early as this fall. The sample-return work is separate from the Mars Exploration Commercial Services program. 

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How to buy Bruno Mars tickets: Las Vegas residency and other dates

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Bruno Mars is heading back on tour this summer, and tickets to his 2024 concert dates are going fast. As the "24K Magic" singer prepares to resume his Las Vegas residency, we'll show you how to buy Bruno Mars tickets for his 2024 tour.

After rising to fame for his hit single "Just the Way You Are" in 2010, Bruno Mars is still making tracks that are just as popular and performing them on the road 14 years later. Following the release of his chart-topping album "24K Magic," the 15-time Grammy winner began a concert residency at the Park MGM in Las Vegas in 2016, which is now in its eighth consecutive year.

Bruno Mars' Las Vegas residency resumes in June 2024 for its 16th leg, as the artist completed the 15th set of concert dates earlier this year in February. He's now set to embark on another 12 shows at Dolby Live for the upcoming leg of his residency. Of course, Bruno Mars also has a few other concerts planned outside the Las Vegas residency dates for his 2024 tour.

We've got you covered if you're looking for how to get tickets to Bruno Mars' 2024 Las Vegas residency concerts and additional tour dates. Here's our breakdown of Bruno Mars' 2024 tour schedule, purchasing details, and price comparisons between original and resale tickets. You can also browse ticket specifics at your leisure on StubHub and Vivid Seats .

• See also: Adele tickets | Bad Bunny tickets | Nicki Minaj tickets | Bruce Springsteen tickets | Fujii Kaze tickets

Bruno Mars 2024 tour schedule

Following a nearly four-month hiatus, Bruno Mars' Las Vegas residency returns on June 7, 2024. The next leg includes 12 confirmed shows, which will come to a close on September 1. Additionally, Mars will travel to Los Angeles, CA for two nights. Below, you can find the cheapest available listings on Vivid Seats and StubHub at the time of writing. All concert times are listed in local time zones.

• Flights & hotel:  Booking.com  |  Expedia  
• Flights:  Booking.com  |  Expedia  
• Accommodation:  Booking.com  |  Expedia  |  Airbnb  
• Parking:  Spot Hero  |  The Parking Spot

How to buy tickets for Bruno Mars' 2024 concert tour

You can buy original tickets for Bruno Mars' 2024 concert tour on Ticketmaster. However, since tickets for this leg of his Las Vegas residency have been on sale since February, the number of remaining original tickets is limited. In fact, original tickets to his Los Angeles shows in August 2024 are completely sold out, as he'll be the special grand opener for the Inuit Dome.

Tickets are also available for purchase through resale ticket vendors such as StubHub and Vivid Seats . With original tickets having sold so quickly, you may find better luck with seating variety and pricing options through these resale sites.

How much are Bruno Mars tickets?

Frankly, tickets to see Bruno Mars' Las Vegas residency in 2024 aren't cheap, but prices vary depending on the date and demand for each show. The least expensive available standard original tickets for Bruno Mars start at $225 for his August 27 Las Vegas show, but prices jump quite high for most other dates. On the other hand, resale ticket prices are generally comparable to or cheaper than original tickets.

On Vivid Seats , the least expensive tickets for Bruno Mars' 2024 Las Vegas shows range from $226 on August 27 to $393 on June 15. Meanwhile, StubHub offers similar prices that tend to by slightly more expensive by just a few dollars. The cheapest tickets to Mars' Las Vegas concerts on the latter site range from $233 to $411 for the same dates.

Who is opening for Bruno Mars' tour?

There will be no opening acts for Bruno Mars' Las Vegas concert dates. In the past, Anderson .Paak, Camila Cabello, and Dua Lipa have opened for Mars.

Will there be international tour dates?

Following the upcoming June through September leg of his Las Vegas residency, Bruno Mars will head on an international tour for his 2024 concert series. The "Treasure" singer will travel across Brazil to play eight shows across three different cities between October 4 and 18. Here are the dates and locations of Bruno Mars' 2024 international tour dates in Brazil:

• October 4 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• October 5 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• October 8 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
• October 9 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
• October 12 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
• October 13 - Sao Paulo, Brazil
• October 17 - Brasilia, Brazil
• October 18 - Brasilia, Brazil

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How long does it take to get to Mars?

We explore how long it takes to get to Mars and the factors that affect a journey to the Red Planet.

• Distance to Mars
• Traveling at the speed of light

Fastest spacecraft so far

Mars travel time q&a with an expert.

• Travel time calculation problems
• Past mission's travel times

Additional resources

Ever wondered how long does it take to get to Mars? 

The answer depends on several factors, ranging from the position of Earth and Mars to the technology that would propel you there. According to NASA , a one-way trip to the Red Planet would take about nine months . If you wanted to make it a round-trip , all in all, it would take about 21 months as you will need to wait about three months on Mars to make sure Earth and Mars are in a suitable location to make the trip back home. 

We take a look at how long a trip to the Red Planet would take using available technology and explore some of the factors that would affect your travel time.

Related: Curiosity rover: 15 awe-inspiring photos of Mars (gallery) 

How far away is Mars?

To determine how long it will take to reach Mars, we must first know the distance between the two planets.

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, and the second closest to Earth (Venus is the closest). But the distance between Earth and Mars is constantly changing as they travel around the sun .

In theory, the closest that Earth and Mars would approach each other would be when Mars is at its closest point to the sun (perihelion) and Earth is at its farthest (aphelion). This would put the planets only 33.9 million miles (54.6 million kilometers) apart. However, this has never happened in recorded history. The closest recorded approach of the two planets occurred in 2003 when they were only 34.8 million miles (56 million km) apart.

The two planets are farthest apart when they are both at their farthest from the sun, on opposite sides of the star. At this point, they can be 250 million miles (401 million km) apart.

The average distance between Earth and Mars is 140 million miles (225 million km).

Related: What is the temperature on Mars?

How long would it take to travel to Mars at the speed of light?

Light travels at approximately 186,282 miles per second (299,792 km per second). Therefore, a light shining from the surface of Mars would take the following amount of time to reach Earth (or vice versa):

• Closest possible approach: 182 seconds, or 3.03 minutes
• Closest recorded approach: 187 seconds, or 3.11 minutes
• Farthest approach: 1,342 seconds, or 22.4 minutes
• On average: 751 seconds, or just over 12.5 minutes

The fastest spacecraft is NASA's Parker Solar Probe , as it keeps breaking its own speed records as it moves closer to the sun. On Nov 21, 2021, the Parker Solar Probe reached a top speed of 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second during its 10th close flyby of our star, which translates to a phenomenal 364,621 mph (586,000 kph). According to a NASA statement , when the Parker Solar Probe comes within 4 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface in December 2024, the spacecraft's speed will top 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kph)!

So if you were theoretically able to hitch a ride on the Parker Solar Probe and take it on a detour from its sun-focused mission to travel in a straight line from Earth to Mars, traveling at the speeds the probe reaches during its 10th flyby (101 miles per second), the time it would take you to get to Mars would be:

• Closest possible approach: 93 hours 
• Closest recorded approach: 95 hours  
• Farthest approach: 686 hours (28.5 days)  
• On average: 384 hours (16 days)  

We asked Michael Khan, ESA Senior Mission Analyst some frequently asked questions about travel times to Mars. 

Michael Khan is a Senior Mission Analyst for the European Space Agency (ESA). His work involves studying the orbital mechanics for journeys to planetary bodies including Mars.

How long does it take to get to Mars & what affects the travel time?

The time it takes to get from one celestial body to another depends largely on the energy that one is willing to expend. Here  "energy" refers to the effort put in by the launch vehicle and the sum of the maneuvers of the rocket motors aboard the spacecraft, and the amount of propellant that is used. In space travel, everything boils down to energy. Spaceflight is the clever management of energy.

Some common solutions for transfers to the moon are 1) the Hohmann-like transfer and 2) the Free Return Transfer. The Hohmann Transfer is often referred to as the one that requires the lowest energy, but that is true only if you want the transfer to last only a few days and, in addition, if some constraints on the launch apply. Things get very complicated from there on, so I won't go into details.

Concerning transfers to Mars, these are by necessity interplanetary transfers, i.e., orbits that have the sun as central body. Otherwise, much of what was said above applies: the issue remains the expense of energy. An additional complication lies in the fact that the Mars orbit is quite eccentric and also its orbit plane is inclined with respect to that of the Earth. And of course, Mars requires longer to orbit the sun than the Earth does. All of this is taken into account in a common type of diagram called the "pork chop plot", which essentially tells you the required dates of departure and arrival and the amount of energy required.

The "pork chop plot" shows the trajectory expert that opportunities for Mars transfers arise around every 25-26 months, and that these transfers are subdivided into different classes, one that is a bit faster, with typically around 5-8 months and the other that takes about 7-11 months. There are also transfers that take a lot longer, but I’m not talking about those here. Mostly, but not always, the second, slower one turns out to be more efficient energy-wise. A rule of thumb is that the transfer to Mars takes around as long as the human period of gestation, approximately 9 months. But that really is no more than an approximate value; you still have to do all the math to find out what applies to a specific date.

Why are journey times a lot slower for spacecraft intending to orbit or land on the target body e.g. Mars compared to those that are just going to fly by?

If you want your spacecraft to enter Mars orbit or to land on the surface, you add a lot of constraints to the design problem. For an orbiter, you have to consider the significant amount of propellant required for orbit insertion, while for a lander, you have to design and build a heat shield that can withstand the loads of atmospheric entry. Usually, this will mean that the arrival velocity of Mars cannot exceed a certain boundary. Adding this constraint to the trajectory optimisation problem will limit the range of solutions you obtain to transfers that are Hohmann-like. This usually leads to an increase in transfer duration.

The problems with calculating travel times to Mars

The problem with the previous calculations is that they measure the distance between the two planets as 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, another problem exists. 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 length of time it took the probe to travel. 

Related: A brief history of Mars missions

In reality, however, the planets are moving at different rates during their orbits around the sun. Engineers must calculate the ideal orbits for sending a spacecraft from Earth to Mars. Like throwing a dart at a moving target from a moving vehicle, they must calculate where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives, not where it is when it leaves Earth. 

It's also not possible to travel as fast as you can possibly go if your aim is to eventually orbit your target planet. Spacecraft need to arrive slow enough to be able to perform orbit insertion maneuvers and not just zip straight past their intended destination. 

The travel time to Mars also depends on the technological developments of propulsion systems.

According to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's website, the ideal lineup for a launch to Mars would get you to the planet in roughly nine months. The website quotes physics professor Craig C. Patten , of the University of California, San Diego:

"It takes the Earth one year to orbit the sun and it takes Mars about 1.9 years (say 2 years for easy calculation) to orbit the sun. The elliptical orbit which carries you from Earth to Mars is longer than Earth's orbit but shorter than Mars' orbit. Accordingly, we can estimate the time it would take to complete this orbit by averaging the lengths of Earth's orbit and Mars' orbit. Therefore, it would take about one and a half years to complete the elliptical orbit.

"In the nine months it takes to get to Mars, Mars moves a considerable distance around in its orbit, about three-eighths of the way around the sun. You have to plan to make sure that by the time you reach the distance of Mar's orbit, Mars is where you need it to be! Practically, this means that you can only begin your trip when Earth and Mars are properly lined up. This only happens every 26 months. That is, there is only one launch window every 26 months."

The trip could be shortened by burning more fuel — a process not ideal with today's technology, Patten said.

Evolving technology can help to shorten the flight. NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) will be the new workhorse for carrying upcoming missions, and potentially humans, to the red planet. SLS is currently being constructed and tested, with NASA now targeting a launch in March or April 2022 for its Artemis 1 flight, the first flight of its SLS rocket.

Robotic spacecraft could one day make the trip in only three days. Photon propulsion would rely on a powerful laser to accelerate spacecraft to velocities approaching the speed of light. Philip Lubin, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team are working on Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration (DEEP-IN). The method could propel a 220-lb. (100 kilograms) robotic spacecraft to Mars in only three days, he said.

"There are recent advances which take this from science fiction to science reality," Lubin said at the 2015 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) fall symposium . "There's no known reason why we cannot do this." 

How long did past missions take to reach Mars?

Here is an infographic detailing how long it took several historical missions to reach the Red Planet (either orbiting or landing on the surface). Their launch dates are included for perspective. 

Explore NASA's lunar exploration plans with their Moon to Mars overview . You can read about how to get people from Earth to Mars and safely back again with this informative article on The Conversation . Curious about the human health risks of a mission to the Red Planet? You may find this research paper of particular interest.  

Bibliography

• Lubin, Philip. " A roadmap to interstellar flight. " arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.01356 (2016). 
• Donahue, Ben B. " Future Missions for the NASA Space Launch System. " AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2021 Forum . 2021. 
• Srinivas, Susheela. " Hop, Skip and Jump—The Moon to Mars Mission. " (2019). 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

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Nola Taylor Tillman is a contributing writer for Space.com. She loves all things space and astronomy-related, and enjoys the opportunity to learn more. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English and Astrophysics from Agnes Scott college and served as an intern at Sky & Telescope magazine. In her free time, she homeschools her four children. Follow her on Twitter at @NolaTRedd

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Be an astronaut: nasa seeks explorers for future space missions.

In anticipation of returning human spaceflight launches to American soil, and in preparation for the agency’s journey to Mars, NASA announced it will soon begin accepting applications for the next class of astronaut candidates. With more human spacecraft in development in the United States today than at any other time in history, future astronauts will launch once again from the Space Coast of Florida on American-made commercial spacecraft, and carry out deep-space exploration missions that will advance a future human mission to Mars.

The agency will accept applications from Dec. 14 through mid-February and expects to announce candidates selected in mid-2017. Applications for consideration as a NASA Astronaut will be accepted at:

http://www.usajobs.gov

The next class of astronauts may fly on any of four different U.S. vessels during their careers: the International Space Station, two commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by U.S. companies, and NASA’s Orion deep-space exploration vehicle.

From pilots and engineers, to scientists and medical doctors, NASA selects qualified astronaut candidates from a diverse pool of U.S. citizens with a wide variety of backgrounds. 

“This next group of American space explorers will inspire the Mars generation to reach for new heights, and help us realize the goal of putting boot prints on the Red Planet,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden . “Those selected for this service will fly on U.S. made spacecraft from American soil, advance critical science and research aboard the International Space Station, and help push the boundaries of technology in the proving ground of deep space.”

The space agency is guiding an unprecedented transition to commercial spacecraft for crew and cargo transport to the space station. Flights in Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon will facilitate adding a seventh crew member to each station mission, effectively doubling the amount of time astronauts will be able to devote to research in space.

Future station crew members will continue the vital work advanced during the last 15 years of continuous human habitation aboard the orbiting laboratory, expanding scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies. This work will include building on the regular six-month missions and this year’s  one-year mission , currently underway aboard the station, which is striving for research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space.

In addition, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, now in development, will launch astronauts on missions to the proving ground of lunar orbit where NASA will learn to conduct complex operations in a deep space environment before moving on to longer duration missions on its journey to Mars.

“This is an exciting time to be a part of America’s human space flight program,” said Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “NASA has taken the next step in the evolution of our nation’s human spaceflight program – and our U.S. astronauts will be at the forefront of these new and challenging space flight missions. We encourage all qualified applicants to learn more about the opportunities for astronauts at NASA and apply to join our flight operations team.”

To date, NASA has selected more than 300 astronauts to fly on its increasingly challenging missions to explore space and benefit life on Earth. There are 47 astronauts in the active astronaut corps, and more will be needed to crew future missions to the space station and destinations in deep space.

Astronaut candidates must have earned a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics. An advanced degree is desirable. Candidates also must have at least three years of related, progressively responsible professional experience, or at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. Astronaut candidates must pass the NASA long-duration spaceflight physical.

For more information about a career as a NASA astronaut, and application requirements, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts

Tabatha Thompson / Kathryn Hambleton Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100 [email protected] / [email protected] Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 [email protected]