Why is space travel dangerous?

Answer 1

There are dozens of dangerous things out there in space, But I am just going to name a few; The tempurature, the pressure, the sun's rays, the floating space debris, storms on the different planets. But there are the martians!

Answer 2

Mars is dangerous. It is because of the chemicals and methane in the air, causing it to be dangerously hot at times. Chemicals and gases in the air cause a sort of "blanket" around the surface, sort of like the greenhouse effect on Earth.

Answer 3

Any damage done to a shuttle can be catastrophic, and asteroids of any size can do a great deal of damage. The outside of a shuttle is covered in heat plates that protect the shuttle from the intense heat of re-entry. If even one of those is damaged it can cause the entire ship to be destroyed which unfortunately is all too familiar in the Columbia Shuttle disaster on February 1st 2003 in which all 7 crew members were killed when one of the heat plates was damaged during lift off.

Answer 4

First there are the dangers of launch. Rockets like Soyuz have flown for many years without any accidents and everything is checked especially thoroughly when humans are launched, but a rocket is still a very complex machine.

For space travel itself there are many more dangers, depending where you want to go. In low earth orbit (LEO), for instance on a trip to the ISS, the primary danger is space debris. Things like bolts or pieces of insulation from other rockets and satellites can cause significant damage if they hit a spacecraft. At orbital speed, even something as small as a chip of paint becomes a dangerous projectile. The ISS actually needs to use its engines every now and then to avoid such a projectile. In addition, all the living spaces and important systems are shielded with armor.

The next hazard is radiation.

There are two main types, the solar wind which comes from the Sun and can vary depending on the Sun's activity, and cosmic rays which come from every direction. The biggest threat from the sun are coronal mass ejections, which are intense streams of charged particles literally shot out into space by violent eruptions. The most dangerous part of cosmic radiation are galactic cosmic rays, extremely energetic heavy atoms.

Near the earth, where the station flies, the magnetic field of the Earth blocks out most of this radiation, but even so astronauts absorb much more than they would on the ground, that is why people generally do not stay at the ISS for longer than six months.

A flight to the moon increases the risk of getting hit by a CME, but since the trip only takes a few days and we can monitor the sun fairly well, potential moonwalkers overall are pretty safe if their spacecraft is well shielded.

If we were to venture out further though, say to Mars, things get problematic. With current technology a trip to the red planet takes several months, and the probability of being caught in a solar event rises. A lot. In addition to that, over time the damage by GCRs will add up. There is still a lot we don't know about radiation and how to shield against it so that potential Mars explorers return alive and not as terminal cancer patients either.

The last big hazard of spaceflight is biological. We evolved on Earth under a gravity of 1G. Putting a human into weightlessness for extended periods of time leads to changes in blood circulation, the immune system and other bodily functions, but the most grave threats are muscle and bone loss. Crew on the ISS work out for 2 hours every day to combat muscle loss and even that only slows it down. Bone loss is the bigger threat though, in a matter of weaks the skeleton becomes less and less dense and more fragile. That is another reason why ISS crew usually return to Earth after six months.

A round trip to Mars however takes longer than a year with current technology. Even with daily exercise the returning crew will be leaving their landing site in wheelchairs as they won't be able to walk or even stand up.

Answer 5

Black holes would be considered a danger in space travel because they have a gravitational pull great enough to pull anything in and subsequently destroy the unfortunate object. Also gravitational anomalies such as black holes would have serious potential to mess up radio signals and probably a lot of the ship's sensors.

However, this is not actually an issue for human space travel, human craft have travelled less than 15 light-minutes from Earth, and the distance to nearest black hole is estimated as hundreds of light-years.

Answer 6

There is no air, water, or food, except what you carried from Earth. When you come back to Earth, it is difficult to enter the atmosphere and land.

Answer 7

space is so big and we only have rockets which are good but can only go a certain speed and that is slow compared to how big the universe is

Answer 8

u have no gravity,Food floating everywhere, worried something bad like a meteor might damage the space ship

XOXO\

Hoped i helped! :)

Answer 9

Real Dangerous!

Answer 10

becase no one live there