Scientist proposes new route to Mars that would be three times shorter than current estimates: What's the solution?
The distance separating Earth from Mars is approximately 225 million kilometers, a difficult barrier to overcome. Despite this, humanity has long looked to this red planet as a latent promise of becoming our next home.
According to NASA, a safe trip there should take between six and nine months, primarily due to the high radiation exposure the crew would suffer on shorter trips. However, physicist Jack Kingdon has put forward a new proposal that could change the narrative.
If a crew reaches Mars, they must stay on the planet for three to four months before returning. Photo: iStock
Kingdon maintains that we can reach Mars in just 90 days using technology already available, without having to wait for developments still in the experimental phase, such as nuclear engines or VASIMR thrusters.
Their research, published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports, uses the well-known "Lambert problem" to calculate trajectories that allow a ship, such as SpaceX's Starship, to cover the distance in a radically shorter time.
This includes a crucial factor: a meticulous logistical design, with two manned ships and four cargo ships that would be refueled in low Earth orbit before beginning the journey.
The crewed spacecraft would require 15 refuelings, which would require 45 Starship Superheavy launches to meet mission requirements. This logistical deployment, while ambitious, is within what SpaceX could achieve in weeks if it meets its goal of 1,000 launches per year.
The plan includes the use of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) technologies, such as Sabatier reactors and Martian water electrolysis to generate fuel on the planet itself. With 1,500 tons of locally generated propellant, the ships would be ready to embark on the return journey, completing a cycle that, according to Kingdon, can be accomplished without the cumulative risks that come with long journeys.
This approach, according to the expert, reduces physical risks such as bone loss or the possibility of developing cancer—risks that increase proportionally with time in space—and also reduces the psychological and logistical impact on the crew.
Microorganisms may have hidden beneath the Martian crust from solar radiation. Photo: iStock
If Kingdon is right, the paradigm of travel to Mars could experience a radical change, making a rapid mission viable with technologies already available or in immediate development.
While Kingdon's choice could completely change the way we think about Mars travel, criticism has arisen over some other details.
If the scientist's plan is followed, the viability of the trip depends not on a hypothetical future improvement, but on the extreme optimization of current resources. And one of the keys is to take advantage of the exact moments when the orbits of Mars and Earth allow for maximum trajectory efficiency, a practice already known but now pushed to the limit.
In this regard, NASA has deemed the use of new forms of propulsion essential to shorten these journeys, as demonstrated by its interest in nuclear thermal or electric engines, options that still face regulatory, development, and implementation hurdles.
According to internal agency documents, nuclear systems are considered the only ones with the potential to enable short-duration manned spaceflight.
The feasibility of the plan has also been debated. Despite this, this proposal, which casts a new light on how humans would make their first great interplanetary leap, continues to be analyzed.
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