Dust in the Atmosphere of Mars and its Impact on Human Exploration

Human exploration of outer space started with Apollo program of USA and the world recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of human landing on Moon. The quest for human exploration of Mars is also seriously being planned to boost human urge to explore new frontiers and to excite and stimulate the next generation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, etc. This may also lead to presence of human species on two planets by establishing a human colony on Mars. However, many factors need to be accounted before such an effort could be fructified. Apollo missions taught many lessons for future human exploration and one of them was to know the deleterious impact of lunar dust on the astronauts, their spacesuits and equipment. Lunar dust permeated everything and impacted mechanical systems. The dust on the Moon’s surface was disturbed and became airborne by the routine actions of the astronauts as they walked and performed their activities on the lunar surface.