The Moon and Mars: How new science results are enabling future space exploration

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, CU Boulder

Since Mariner 4’s first flyby of Mars 60 years ago, humanity has taken huge strides in understanding the Red Planet. As attention turns to future missions, it’s critical to use current assets to understand and overcome the novel challenges we’ll face to establish longer-term habitation on the Moon and land humans on Mars. These range from protecting astronauts from potentially harmful solar flares to the removal of dust from vital equipment to securing in situ resources.

This media event will highlight key science results to understand potential challenges—and proactively consider solutions. These include:

Understanding dust lofting and transport on small, airless bodies like the Moon to develop dust-removal solutions 
Understanding the abundance and distribution of water and minerals on the Moon to enable longer-term human presence and exploration
Recent efforts to miniaturize magnetometers to conduct local surveys to understand how crustal fields protect the Martian surface from radiation
The first comprehensive catalogue of space weather events at Mars (1.5 AU)
Developing new decision-making tools to support human exploration to implement Mars space weather forecasting capabilities

Panel:

Dr. Shannon Curry, Associate Professor, Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, CU Boulder 
Dr. Gina DiBraccio, Director (Acting), Solar System Exploration Division, and Deputy Director, Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Dr. Bethany Ehlmann, Director, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, CU Boulder
Dr. Jared Espley, Planetary Magnetospheres Lab Chief, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Dr. Xu Wang, Research Scientist, IMPACT Lab, CU Boulder

Contact: Willow Reed, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, CU Boulder, willow.reed@lasp.colorado.edu