Volta, Alessandro Alessandro Volta with his electric pile, or wet battery, in an illustration by Louis Figuier, 1870. Â© Photos.com/Thinkstock; In 1801 in Paris Volta gave a demonstration of his batteryâs generation of electric current before Napoleon, who made Volta a count and a senator of the kingdom of Lombardy.
Journey time to Mars, which is approximately 40 million miles away depending on its position in orbit, would be around 200 days. âGoing to Mars would make me feel like I am a true Star Trek officer,â said one applicant, Michael Archavian.
Mars is so far away in fact that it takes radio signals quite a long time to get from the spacecraft back to Earth. During Curiosity EDL, this delay will be 13 minutes, 48 seconds, about mid-way between the minimum delay of around 4 minutes and the maximum of around 24 minutes. This makes it a challenge to operate Mars Express because it's hard to have a conversation with the spacecraft, or react if anything happens on board.