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Asked by niamh moore to Aislinn, Fiona, Nathan, Padraic, Sinead on 31 Jan 2015.
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Padraic Morrissey answered on 31 Jan 2015:
Hi Niamh, great question! I think the main thing stopping us going inside other planets is that it’s really hard to land equipment on them to drill and make holes. The other planets are really far away so it’s a big technological challenge.
Another problem is that some planets don’t actually have any land on them at all, instead they are huge balls of gas. In our solar system Jupiter and Saturn are examples of these and they are known as “Gas Giants”. Sometimes what scientists will do is send probes/robots into these gas planets and try to better understand what happens inside of them.
I think in the future when space travel is more available and cheaper, we’ll start exploring other planets (Mars is probably the next one we’ll try to land people on) and try to see what’s going on under their surface.
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Sinead Quirke answered on 31 Jan 2015:
That’s very interesting I didn’t know you that you can’t go inside other planets.
For me there are 2 aspects to going inside a planet. One is the material itself that makes up the surface and the other is the equipment and processes that you use to breakthrough the surface. Earth is covered with soil and rocks and water. We can go inside because we have studied, tested and experimented with the materials and we know how they act. We then have the tools and processes to drill and to make a tunnel safe.
We haven’t really explored the other planets in enough detail to study, test or experiment below their surfaces so maybe in the future we will be able to, I just don’t think we know enough about them.
Ill be very interested in the replies from the other engineers…..
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Nathan Quinlan answered on 1 Feb 2015:
It’s really hard to get to any planet. The biggest thing we’ve put on another planet is the Curiosity rover on Mars, which is a robot that’s about as big and heavy as a small car. To send people there, you’d have to send food, air and water for at least a year, equipment, something they can live without going crazy, a spaceship to bring them home, and fuel. That’s a lot more weight to carry.
To send more weight into space, you have to burn more fuel. And you have to carry oxygen to burn it in, because there’s no air out there. But that fuel and oxygen is more weight to carry, so you have to burn more fuel to carry that fuel, and so and so on. If you want to send a lot of stuff into space, the amount of fuel becomes huge.
The biggest rocket ever built, and the most powerful machine of any kind, was the Saturn V. It sent three people to the moon, and they were away for about a week. It was absolutely huge, and most if the space inside it was full of fuel. If astronauts ever go to Mars, or further, they’ll need a much bigger ship. If we want to go inside Mars, we’ll need digging and drilling equipment, as Padraic said, and that’s a lot more weight to carry. It might happen one day – it would probably be very interesting, scientifically, to find out what’s inside Mars. But first we have to get there, and that’s hard enough. And there’ll be lots of things to do on the surface to keep the first visitors busy.
Sorry about the long answer – that’s my attempt to explain why it’s so hard to bring big things into space!
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Aislinn Coghlan answered on 3 Feb 2015:
Hi Niamh,
Just trying to get the equipment up there would be a nightmare. I think one day we will be able to do everything we can on earth on different planets
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