VIENNA, June 2 – Trend Wire. Austrian cosmonaut Franz Viebeck explained in an interview with Trend Wire why it is impossible to return quickly from Mars.
Commenting on the question of when a person will actually be able to fly to Mars, the agency’s interlocutor noted that from a technological point of view, people have already advanced quite far. The main difficulty now is the duration of the flight. According to the astronaut, a large amount of fuel and appropriate technical solutions will be required, and here the situation is different than with a flight to the Moon, where you can fly to in three days and return back almost immediately.
“There are certain periods when the distance between Earth and Mars is most favorable – then the flight takes about six months. Then you have to wait about a year before you have the opportunity to return – and the return journey also takes about six months,” Fiebeck explained.
Fiebeck flew to the Soviet orbital station Mir in 1991. Along with the Austrian in the crew were Soviet cosmonauts Alexander Volkov and Toktar Aubakirov. He spent almost eight days in orbit performing scientific experiments in the fields of space medicine, physics and space technology. This was the first and so far only space flight of an Austrian citizen.
Source: Ria