Mark Shelhamer is the author, with Brian Gallagher, of the new book Are We Ready for Mars?. He is the principal investigator of the Johns Hopkins Human Spaceflight Laboratory and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Q: What inspired you to write Are We Ready for Mars?
A: The publisher made me an offer I couldn’t refuse – to pair me with a professional science writer and help guide the book to completion.
More than that, however, the book captures several key ideas that have been on my mind since I spent time at NASA 10 years ago – in particular the idea that a Mars mission has to be designed in an integrated manner, with the role of humans as key contributors to mission success taken into account.
Q: The scientist Caleb Scharf called the book a “fantastically rich read that makes a powerful argument for why preparing humans to successfully travel to Mars—and back—will transform what it means to survive and flourish in the universe.” What do you think of that description?
A: I love it, of course. I’m honored. This captures the essence of the book – learning how to help humans thrive (not just survive) on a Mars mission will help us do the same in other settings, including here on Earth where we all live in stressful and demanding situations with many of the same challenges that will be faced by a crew going to explore Mars.
All of these problems will be much more acute on a Mars mission, given the extreme challenges and relative lack of resources onboard, so studying human resilience for Mars will have benefits for understanding human resilience elsewhere.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title was suggested by the publisher, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. The title indicates that – despite already sending people to the moon and landing rovers on Mars – it’s still an open question as to whether or not we are ready to send people to Mars.
We could send people now, if we had the rockets, but it wouldn’t be pretty, and the crew wouldn’t perform at a high enough level to make the trip worthwhile. More research on human adaptation to spaceflight is needed.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: Sending people to Mars will be a human endeavor, not just a technological endeavor.
Humans will be both the weakest and the strongest components of the system-of-systems that will constitute a successful mission to Mars. They require resources like air, water, food, and exercise. But they instill a mission with a great deal of resilience – the ability to cope with the unknown.
It is in everyone’s best interests to maintain human health and performance, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because this will enable the astronaut crew to perform at a high enough level to make the trip worthwhile, to maintain the spacecraft and habitat, and to perform science and exploration at peak efficiency.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My lab is trying to figure out how to assess, quantify, and maintain the kind of multi-system resilience that we talk about in the book.
This will be applicable not only to spaceflights of the future (including commercial spaceflights to research and tourist facilities in Earth orbit), but also to health and wellbeing on Earth. Both the spaceflight application and the terrestrial-health application will need new ways of thinking about human health.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: A Mars mission will be incredibly challenging. We should embrace the challenges, and use the mission not only to develop technology and explore Mars, but also to study how humans cope with demanding environments. This will help all of us.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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