Human missions to The Red Planet are increasingly coming into the focus of government and now privately funded initiatives. In Liverpool we channel this excitement into an award-winning student driven icebreaker project, the “Mission to Mars”.
Mission to Mars is a week-long project that takes all physics and astrophysics students and tasks them with developing a detailed and feasible plan for a human Mission to Mars. The project takes place during the first week of the first semester (every day, all day), replacing all other teaching activities for that week. Students work in teams on four competing missions, each under the guidance of a member of staff acting as “flight director”, and they cover all aspects of such a trip, including the scope and scientific purpose, life support, trajectory, mass management, radiation shielding, communication, and ethics. Students hold a midweek press conference and present their missions to academic staff who choose the winning mission.