TUNGSTEN VALLEY - This is the last of a three-part series on traveling to Mars, landing on Mars, and living on Mars. We’re looking at this because the Administration’s budgetary grotesquery mostly strips NASA of science missions, while directing a crash program to send people to the Red Planet.

What will Mars Walk One look like? If the Human Landing System (HLS) that we examined last month is used, some (two or three?) astronauts will suit up; climb through an airlock; ride a 120-foot elevator down their rocket’s side; and then step onto the surface.

They’ll need to occupy themselves for weeks or months, awaiting favorable planetary geometry for departure back to the earth. They’ll be isolated and maybe bored, what with robots having already accomplished so much. Perhaps they could retrieve the precious rock samples that NASA’s Perseverance Rover has collected and stashed at Jezero Crater?

Other than a sample return, the early motivations for sending people to the Red Planet have been obviated by fifty years of robotic advances. The current motivation is a dystopian vision in which long-term Mars workers will indenture themselves to a corporation in exchange for their trip.

It’s been suggested that they could mine palladium and make rocket fuel for more trips. (Really? we ask.) But, beyond that, nobody seems to have thought of much of anything to do there.

What is certain is that living on Mars will be challenging and hazardous. For starters, the travelers will be continually bombarded by dangerous, high-energy cosmic radiation. Here on the earth our magnetic field and atmosphere are shields.

On Mars, with no magnetic field and practically no atmosphere, the travelers will be zapped non-stop, unless they shelter in lava-tube caves. Welcome to the space-o-lithic!

Biological contamination will be assured, if the spacecraft and spacesuits are not thoroughly sterilized and if the crew leaves any human waste behind. The Apollo astronauts left their personal waste in NASA baggies, on departure from the moon.

Mars people, contrastingly, must remove it from the environment if they are not to contaminate a planet that may very well be supporting life. (Life is the easiest explanation for how Mars seasonally generates atmospheric methane.)

Martian dust will be a major operational and health risk. Apollo moon walkers looked like coal miners when they un-helmeted inside the LEM cabin; they reported that dust would be a serious impediment to long-term lunar operations. Ditto for Mars. Its super-fine dust will jam equipment and cause silicosis when inhaled, unless effective, not-yet-developed controls are exercised.

The Red Planet is unfriendly. That’s why we love sending robots there. Time will tell if there will ever be any rational reason for people to go there.

October Fun Astro Fact: Here on the earth, we can’t see a Mars landing in real time because it takes between four to twenty minutes for radio transmissions to reach us. Double that to say, “Hi,” and get a reply.

In October Skies:

The sun spends the month in Virgo, entering Libra on October 30. At mid-month, days and nights are 11 and 13 hours long, respectively.

The moon’s dates are: Full (Hunter’s Moon) October 6; Last Quarter October 14; New October 21; First Quarter October 28.

October Meteors: Camelopardalids October 6; Draconids, southern Taurids and delta Aurigids October 9-11; epsilon Geminids October 18; Orionids October 22; and Leonis Monorids October 25.

Best Sky Viewing Nights (Minimal Moon): October 14-27.

Sunset (Mid-Month): Pegasus is low in the east; the Navigator’s Triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair is high overhead; Arcturus is setting in the west.

Midnight (Mid-Month): Capella is high in the northeast in Auriga. Just above it is brilliant Perseus with Algol. Andromeda is directly overhead. Cetus, the Whale, is in the south. Orion rises in the east.

Sunrise (Mid-Month): Leo is high in the southeast. Orion is in the southwest. Sirius, in Canis Major, is low in the south.

Mercury, in Libra, is lost in the sun, barely visible in the southwest at sunset October 29.

Venus, in Crater between Leo and Virgo, is very low in the east at sunrise.

Mars, in Libra to the right of Mercury, is barely visible in the southwest at sunset.

Jupiter, in Gemini, rises at midnight and is high in the south at sunrise.

Saturn, in Aquarius, is low in the east at sunset, high in the south-southwest at midnight, and sets at 5 a.m. With binoculars, pivot leftward eight moon diameters to see Neptune.

Notable Space Missions: A new pair of Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) satellites, also known as Hornets, will launch from Cape Canaveral this month on a Vulcan Centaur VC4S booster. Hornets maneuver near and surveil (spy on) other satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Frank Sanders, a spectrum scientist, takes astronomy-related inquiries at backyardastronomy1@gmail.com.