We have successfully colonized Mars with robots, installed the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit, sent the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft on an 11 billion-mile journey to the outer reaches of our solar system, and discovered over 4500 exoplanets. This is all thanks to the short time that humans have been exploring space.
According to current estimates, the Milky Way galaxy alone has around 400 billion stars that are home to tens of billions of solar systems, each with its own family of planets, many of which are similar to Earth. If even one of these planets is inhabited, it would fundamentally alter everything we know about the cosmos and provide an answer to the age-old question of whether or not we are alone??
Is there life on Mars?
Is life a one-time occurrence or an unavoidable byproduct of the Universe’s evolution? Our sibling planet Mars, a red dusty frozen world, is currently one of our best bets for answering this question. Although Mars appears dead and barren today, it has a similar early history to Earth and had flowing water and conditions conducive to life billions of years ago. Could these ancient environments on Mars hold clues to a long-lost biosphere?
‘Life as we know it’ requires water, energy, and a carbon source to exist. Although we cannot rule out the possibility of discovering a living organism on Mars, the more likely scenario is that we will discover the carbon-based organic building blocks used to create it – the fingerprints of life rather than life itself.
We’re looking for areas on Mars where liquid water once existed. Minerals such as clays and sulphates are found in these now-dry locations and are important to astrobiology because they can preserve evidence of life, if it ever existed, for millions or even billions of years.
In 2023, the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Mars rover will land at Oxia Planum to look for organic fingerprints, also known as ‘biosignatures.’ The answer we’ve been looking for millennia could be just a few years away.
Do you think it’s feasible to build a Mars colony?
The best way for us to discover and investigate potential examples of ancient or current life on Mars is to go there ourselves. Conditions on Mars today aren’t exactly human-friendly, but they’re also not insurmountable, and we’re developing technologies to help our species thrive on the Red Planet rather than just survive.
Despite its sub-zero temperatures (on average -63°C), thin toxic carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, radiation, lack of surface liquid water, and ferocious global dust storms, Mars has the second-most hospitable environment in the Solar System after Earth. Furthermore, it shares Earth’s day length, axial tilt, and seasons, as well as an atmosphere (albeit unbreathable), water frozen as ice, and habitable environments.
But should we go straight to Mars, or should we first practice on the Moon? We have so many questions about planetary colonization methods and the effects on life living off Earth that it is probably useful to test and figure these out on the Moon, which is easily accessible if there is a problem, before moving on.
Human Landing on Mars
Building a settlement on Mars will take far more effort than building one on the Moon. Because of the great distance between the Earth and Mars (at its closest point, Mars is only 55,000,000 km away), the total journey time could take between 150-300 days depending on the distance between the planets at the time of launch and the rockets, aka the amount of fuel used.
Add to that the difficulty of launching and transporting all of the necessary materials, the effects on human physiology and psychology during the long, confined, radiation-drenched journey, and the technology required for landing on Mars and taking off again, and moving to Mars is no longer a viable option.
Developing a Mars Settlement
Moving to Mars and establishing a base means “to boldly stay” rather than “to boldly go”. We can get there, but how will we stay there?
Building a habitat on another planet is no easy task; for Mars, this includes thinking about how building materials will react to the dusty, low air pressure environment, extreme temperatures, outward forces from pressurized habitats, radiation damage, and the planet’s 38% gravity.
Due to the time and cost of traveling between Mars and Earth, a habitat on Mars will need to be self-sustaining for future Martians, providing oxygen to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, protection from the harsh radiation environment, light and power, and stable comfortable temperatures.
One design is for typical inflatable domes used in harsh environments on Earth. These are lightweight and would be relatively simple to erect on the ground, but they would require protection. Local materials like regolith and soil could be used to make concrete and cover the inflatable habitats, adding an extra layer of protection against radiation and micrometeorite strikes.
Making Mars habitable through terraforming
We shall live similarly to how we do in Antarctica in enclosed homes that maintain an Earth-like environment until humanity finally reach Mars. But will our species be able to survive in this world?
It might take thousands of years to accomplish, but terraforming is a process that can turn Mars into another Earth and sustainably revive it. This is an alternative to replicating the Earth in miniature, where the failure of a single crucial piece of technology could put lives in danger and where resources are limited.
Three significant interconnected changes would be required to terraform Mars: increasing the atmosphere by causing a stronger greenhouse effect and global warming; maintaining the planet’s temperature so that liquid water can remain stable on its surface and support vegetation growth; and preventing the new atmosphere from being lost to space. The majority of the labor would be performed by life itself; we would just need to warm the planet, scatter some seeds and bugs, and watch as life took control.
However, before sending a human mission to the planet, NASA claims that there are still a number of challenges that must be addressed, including technological advancement and a greater knowledge of the human body, mind, and how we could adapt to life on other planets. According to Jeffrey Sheehy, chief engineer of the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate, and Michelle Rucker, leader of NASA’s Human Mars Architecture Team at the Johnson Space Center, these challenges can be broken down into three main issues: Arrive there, settle there, stay there, and depart there.
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Writer,
Fahima Akter
YSSE
Content Writing Intern