Are you planning a trip to Mars? by Sophia, Logan, Lily, and Zoe
Our science group had to imagine what it would be like to be the first people to travel to Mars--just the four of us. It would take at least 16 months in a small spaceship to get there and back. Our job was to find out what the problems might be. Then we had to think of how to solve them. One book said that since that there is almost no gravity in space, we would be _______________ . We would be able to float around the spaceship. We all were sure that would be a _____________ thing, not a problem. Then we read a different passage in the book. It said that having no gravity could be a ______________________ thing, too. Human bodies have problems being weightless for that long. One way to improve the effects on humans is to make gravity by spinning the spaceship. Maybe you know what that’s like. If you ever held someone’s hand and spun around, you have felt how it pulls you outward. We hoped there would be at least one passage in the ship where we could float. There would be lots of time to play games and have fun together. We thought that was a big ______________ . But scientists think the opposite may be true. It is difficult for people to ___________ their feelings in a cramped spaceship. It’s difficult to get along when they see only the same few people every day. (Imagine three kids on the back seat on a long car trip that lasts 500 days!) We said we would make a promise to each other to stay friendly. We would also let anyone have private time if they wanted to be alone. They might be right there with us, but we would ignore them and pretend they weren’t there for maybe 90 minutes. We learned a trip to Mars would be harder than we thought. Maybe we will wait until we are older—like twelve.
