Drinking in ZERO-G! (and other challenges of a trip to Mars)

A trip to #Mars involves radiation, muscle and bone loss, intermediate axis theorem and liquids.
Check out Mars on National Geographic, Monday Nov 12 at 9/8c
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When I got offered the chance to fly in another #zeroG plane, I jumped at the chance. Do you know how hard it is when you are thrust into low-gravity, like the 37% of Earth's gravity of Mars, and you have to remember what you were going to say in a 30 second window as blood floods your head? It's pretty hard. It would be even harder to actually travel to Mars. It would take about 8 months in microgravity during which time your muscles and bones would weaken substantially, even if you exercise for hours a day like the astronauts on the space station. And your heart is a muscle too so it weakens as well. Before I contemplated these rates of muscle and bone loss, I thought the major challenge with a round trip journey to Mars would be the logistics of spacecraft and having enough fuel to get back. But with the weakening of the human body, it's an open question whether anyone would really want to come back.

Filmed by Steve Boxall

Music from Epidemic Sound: http://epidemicsound.com

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