What are the effects of Mars gravity on humans?
Obviously, nothing can be done to alter gravity on the surface of Mars. However, at 38% of Earth’s gravity, the effects associated with microgravity are reduced considerably. Considering that Mir cosmonauts have experienced comparable times in zero gravity with no long-term negative impacts — Sergei Avdev spent a total of 748 days in zero-gravity over 3 missions, and Valeri Polyakov spent 438 consecutive days without gravity — there is no reason to believe that the maximum stay of 550 days on Mars associated with conjunction-class missions would cause long-term health problems. A privately funded program to study the effects of Mars gravity, the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program, is currently underway. The Mars Society was the initiator of the project.
