Mars is a hostile planet, and is currently unable to support human life. NASA and other agencies have been trying to figure out how to put humans on Mars for many years. The planet has no breathable air, so anyone who tries surviving on the Red Planet must take oxygen with them. The soil will not support crops, and there is no water.

In the film The Martian, marooned astronaut Mark Watney has to survive the Red Planet's harsh environment. Just how close to reality is a manned mission to Mars?' We already have the skills and technology needed to take people to Mars, we just need to build it,' says astro-geologist Jonathan Clarke from the Mars Society of Australia.Skills and technologies needed to get to Mars — such as space navigation, docking, and undertaking spacewalks — were developed during the Gemini missions to put a man on the Moon in Apollo. Dr Jonathan Clarke'We are actually far better prepared for Mars now than NASA was in 1961 as it looked to getting a man on the Moon before the end of the decade and returning him safely to the Earth again,' Dr Clarke says.' If we put our mind to it we could be on Mars in 10 years.' NASA's timeframe is a little longer. The first step is to land astronauts on an asteroid around 2024, then it hopes to land astronauts on the Red Planet in the 2030s.In the meantime it is testing out a range of technologies on the International Space Station, exploring the surface of Mars with robot landers, and developing space suits, exploration vehicles and deep space habitats to help astronauts live and work on Mars.According to Dr Clarke, there are five key issues we need to look at in preparation for sending people to Mars.

How to survive a long-haul stint in space. CloseAny human journey to Mars would involve a round trip of at least two-and-a-half years, six months to fly there, six months to come home again, and a year-and-a-half on the Martian surface while Mars and Earth move back into the right orbital positions for the return flight.' We don't know how people will adapt to long periods of Mars gravity which is just 38 per cent of the gravity we have on Earth,' Dr Clarke says.' More than 30 people have already spent more than a year in space, so we already know how to survive long durations in micro-gravity through exercise.'

However, Dr Clarke admits more experiments will need to be undertaken aboard the International Space Station to further improve our understanding of how the human body can adapt to micro-gravity.As part of research into future human missions to Mars, NASA and the Russian Space Agency have started keeping space station crew in orbit on year-long missions.' We need to fill in the data points of how much exercise people will need, do they need a special diet and so on,' Dr Clarke explains.' I don't think it's a problem, but it is an unknown.'

How to land a payload the size of a Boeing 737. CloseAs if surviving a two-and-a-half-year, non-stop journey isn't daunting enough, actually landing a heavy craft on the Red Planet's surface is the 'biggest single challenge' a mission will face, Dr Clarke says.'

The Mars Curiosity Rover was the biggest thing we've ever landed on the Red Planet, over two tonnes of payload entered the Martian atmosphere. And when it touched down, the rover itself was over 900 kilograms, the size of a compact car,' he explains.' When we're talking about putting people on Mars, we're talking about spacecraft landing with masses of at least 25 to 60 tonnes.

These are big payloads the size of a 737 airliner, which is one-and-a-half orders of magnitude greater than anything we've done before.' There's no reason we can't do this, but we've actually got to do the engineering to do it, and that's probably a big challenge.' Getting out and exploring. CloseAssuming you did actually manage to land your craft in one piece, the next challenge is to explore your new world. With only one third of the gravity of Earth, and an atmosphere made mainly of carbon dioxide, Mars presents challenges for walking and vehicles alike.The spacesuits used for spacewalks on the Moon and on the International Space Station weigh around 200 kilograms and are very bulky, which would make them unsuitable for Mars, Dr Clarke says.' These spacesuits are all right for wearing every few months on the space station in micro-gravity, but when you go out exploring on Mars, the spacesuits need to be light and flexible so you can wear them a couple of times a week without getting blisters or injuring yourself.'

Various hard and soft-bodied spacesuits are being evaluated, including mechanical counter-pressure spacesuits which apply stable pressure against the skin by means of skin-tight elastic garments, and which I think are the way to go.' Dr Clarke believes the same applies to vehicles.

If you want to explore Mars, travelling up to 100 kilometres from the landing site, you'll need something a little better than the golf buggy-sized lunar rover used by Apollo.' We're going to need something like a pressurised camper van,' says Dr Clarke.'

And NASA have been testing their Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV), a 12-wheeled truck called the Chariot, since 2008.' CloseWithout a protective atmosphere like Earth, astronauts on Mars will be exposed to cosmic radiation.But Dr Clarke doesn't believe radiation will be as much of an issue as some people think.'

People in low Earth orbit get as much solar radiation exposure and about 60 per cent of the cosmic ray exposure they would be subjected to in interplanetary space,' he says.' So if anyone has spent more than 240 days on the space station, they have already had as much radiation exposure as they would get in a shielded spacecraft on a round trip to Mars.' The combination of the thin Martian atmosphere and the spacecraft or habitat hull would provide enough protection from radiation for 18 months on the surface of Mars.'

So yes it is a factor, but in my view it's not a show stopper.' In the movie, Watney is stranded after a massive dust storm hits the base.Unlike the movie, however, dust storms are not likely to strand a real astronaut on Mars. The planet's air pressure is 1/99th that of Earth's, not enough to damage major equipment. It just could mean a lot of cleaning.' Dust is a challenge on Mars but not an insurmountable problem,' Dr Clarke says.'

Humans can always clean solar panels manually and use compressed air in airlocks to clean themselves before entering the habitat.' How to supply fuel, water, oxygen and food. CloseAnother challenge is how to live off the land - for a year and a half.There are a number of options for making fuel on Mars.One idea involves splitting the water frozen in the subsurface Martian permafrost into hydrogen and oxygen, both for use as propellant and for the crew to drink and breath.' You can also extract water from the Martian atmosphere, or bring hydrogen from Earth and react that with the carbon dioxide atmosphere on Mars to make methane and oxygen,' says Dr Clarke.' If you're making 50 tonnes of propellant for ascent in the Martian atmosphere, you can make a few more tonnes to keep your crew alive or to power your vehicle to explore the surface.'

Once you've done that, life on Mars becomes a lot easier. So before you send people to Mars, you send an automated processing plant to the planet's surface to manufacture your fuel, water and oxygen.' But while it's more economical to make fuel on Mars, growing food would be more challenging, says Dr Clarke. CloseNASA has recently on the International Space Station.'

Growing their own food has been a major morale boost for crew in both Antarctica and on space stations,' he says.While Clarke believes growing crops will be one of the research projects undertaken by the first humans on Mars, he queries how efficient it will be.' To actually grow enough food to support people would require a substantial area of several hundred square metres per person.' 'You've got to process it and you have all the vagaries of maybe the crops won't grow in the Martian soil, or under Martian gravity, or maybe there'll be trace contaminants in the soil which the plants don't like, so it's easier to bring your own food with you.Unlike transporting fuel which weighs a lot, transporting food from Earth is less of an issue, he says.'

In terms of dry weight it comes down to less than a kilogram per person per day.' So on a thousand-day mission for six people that's six tonnes of food, the size of a small room and about the capacity of a space station cargo ship.' Getting back to Earth. CloseAfter living on the Red Planet for a year-and-a-half, it's time to embark on the six-month journey home.Launching from Mars will be easier than launching from Earth, but harder than launching from the Moon because of the higher gravity on the Red Planet.' It's just a question of building a small compact spacecraft that can take you to Mars orbit, where you can dock with a return spacecraft to take you to Earth,' Dr Clarke says.'

It takes less energy so it's easier coming home than going to Mars. But we haven't done it yet.' Ultimately, however, Dr Clarke says the biggest challenge to a mission to Mars will be the socio-political decision to go.' Are we going to commit to it, and are we going to commit to it being a sustainable project rather than just flags and footprints like the Moon?'

Is it going to be Antarctica rather than Apollo?' Dr Jonathon Clarke is the president of the Mars Society Australia.

Azure Backup - Frequently asked questions. 9 minutes to read.In this articleThis article answers common questions about the Azure Backup service. Recovery services vault Is there any limit on the number of vaults that can be created in each Azure subscription?Yes.

You can create up to 500 Recovery Services vaults, per supported region of Azure Backup, per subscription. If you need additional vaults, create an additional subscription. Are there limits on the number of servers/machines that can be registered against each vault?You can register up to 1000 Azure Virtual machines per vault. If you are using the Microsoft Azure Backup Agent, you can register up to 50 MARS agents per vault.

And you can register 50 MABS servers/DPM servers to a vault. How many datasources/items can be protected in a vault?You can protect up to 2000 datasources/items across all workloads (IaaS VM, SQL, AFS, etc.) in a vault.For example, if you have already protected 500 VMs and 400 Azure Files shares in the vault, you can only protect up to 1100 SQL databases in it. How many policies can I create per vault?You can only have up to 200 policies per vault. If my organization has one vault, how can I isolate data from different servers in the vault when restoring data?Server data that you want to recover together should use the same passphrase when you set up backup. If you want to isolate recovery to a specific server or servers, use a passphrase for that server or servers only.

For example, human resources servers could use one encryption passphrase, accounting servers another, and storage servers a third. Can I move my vault between subscriptions?Yes. To move a Recovery Services vault, refer this Can I move backup data to another vault?No. Backup data stored in a vault can't be moved to a different vault. Can I change from GRS to LRS after a backup?No.

A Recovery Services vault can only change storage options before any backups have been stored. Can I do an Item Level Restore (ILR) for VMs backed up to a Recovery Services vault?. ILR is supported for Azure VMs backed up by Azure VM backup. For more information, see. ILR is not supported for online recovery points of on-premises VMs backed up by Azure backup Server or System Center DPM.Azure Backup agent Where can I find common questions about the Azure Backup agent for Azure VM backup?.

For the agent running on Azure VMs, read this. For the agent used to back up Azure file folders, read this.General backup Are there limits on backup scheduling?Yes. You can back up Windows Server or Windows machines up to three times a day.

You can set the scheduling policy to daily or weekly schedules. You can back up DPM up to twice a day. You can set the scheduling policy to daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. You back up Azure VMs once a day.What operating systems are supported for backup?Azure Backup supports these operating systems for backing up files and folders, and apps protected by Azure Backup Server and DPM.

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