Sushruth V.
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
-Neil Armstrong (July 20, 1969)
The human species is a curious one by nature. We wandered out of Africa and Brave men of the Sea set out in search of unknown lands hundreds of years ago. Next, we set our gazes into the heavens. Moon was checked off of our list five decades ago, and Mars is next in line.But the fact is that we humans are not planning to go sightseeing on Mars, we are plan to colonize it, and we are closer to achieving it than most of us think.
But why are we even doing it? Don’t we have better things to spend money on? The answer is simple; life is pretty fragile. One asteroid, mega-earthquake, massive volcanic eruption, nuclear mishap or deadly solar mass ejection and 90% of lifeforms are done for. Very pleasant, yes. The millions of years of evolution that have led us to this point in time, with this level of intelligence, will all be for naught. Colonizing another planet will not guarantee the survival of our genes, but it sure will increase the probability of it happening. Also, the inventions made for space-travel and the research conducted in space have immeasurable value to our lives on Earth.
The next natural question is: Why Mars?
Mars, unlike Venus, is not the sister planet of Earth. It is half the size of Earth. Its atmosphere consists of 96% of Carbon di Oxide and the average surface temperature is about 63-degree centigrade in the negatives. The gravitational force is only about 38% as that of the Earth’s, and it doesn’t have a radiation-protection mechanism. But it has solid ground, water in its poles, crates and trapped carbon dioxide that can warm up
the planet and bring up the near-zero atmospheric pressure. This makes Mars the most suitable candidate in our solar system for our colonizing expedition.
Now, let’s look into how we are going to colonize Mars.
Step 1: Getting there
Mars is a really long way from Earth. 56.4 million kilometers away to be exact. That’s a thousand times farther than the Moon is from the Earth. It will take us at least 240 days to get there, and this best-case scenario pops up only once in two years. Although right now we don’t have a big enough rocket to get us there, SpaceX, the private space organization, is on its way to building one. The company has set its aim to be to get humans onto the surface of Mars by 2025, but experts say that it will be at least 2030 before it happens. But 2030, isn’t such long time from now, it is just three World Cups away.
Step 2: Setting up a thriving colony
Once humans land on Mars, we will need a set of basic necessities: Oxygen, Water, Food, Shelter, Clothing, in that order.
2.1 Oxygen: Well, this problem has already been solved. The genius minds at NASA have already built a contraption named MOXIE that extracts O2 from CO2. MOXIE works as a reverse fuel cell with the capacity to keep one person alive on Mars indefinitely. The design is so ingenious that it can be scaled to a factor of hundred with no additional changes. Air to breath: CHECK.
2.2 Water: The initial missions may have to use devices that resemble dehumidifier to extract water from the Martian atmosphere. The good thing here is that the Martian atmosphere has 100% humidity at all times. As the colony expands, there are plans to melt the ice sheets in the poles and crates on Mars. Underground water sources have also been discovered. Water: CHECK.
2.3 Food: Almost 20% of the food requirements can be grown on Mars using hydroponics while the rest will have to be dried food carried from Earth. Astronauts might even try Matt Damon-style potato farms once they get there. And once water starts flowing on the surface of the planet, farming will become more natural. Food: HALF-A-CHECK.
2.4 Shelter: NASA has already come up with inflatable pressurized building designs that can house up to 5 people. These buildings along with the lander itself will be the home for astronauts on the initial missions. For when the colonies expand, plans to make bricks out of the Martian soil, which coincidentally has been deemed perfect for making bricks, has been chalked out. These buildings will have to be underground owing to the lack of ozone-layer type radiation shield. Housing: CHECK.
2.5 Clothing: NASA scientists have solved this one too. They have come up with a sleek design for the suit that can maintain the required pressure, provide oxygen and, keep out the radiation. Clothes: CHECK.
We have all the necessary technology right now. Kudos, to NASA and the other space agencies. But what remains is getting us out of that suit and into regular Earth-styled clothes. This basically means, turning Mars into Earth 2.0.
Step 3: Terraforming
NASA didn’t stop at making plans for a small colony on Mars, it went all out. Rough plans for terraforming Mars have already been discussed.So, what we have to do is basically melt the polar icecaps. Sounds pretty straightforward, yes. What we are aiming for here is a runaway greenhouse effect (AKA, the thing that we are desperately trying to avoid on Earth). NASA has planned to have a gigantic Solar-Sail, a concave mirror of sorts, focusing at the Polar regions to melt it. As the planet rotates, millions of tons of dry-ice will sublime and be released straight into the atmosphere making it thicker and thicker. As the atmosphere gets thicker, the temperature on the surface rises, melting the icecaps. This will give us flowing water and eventually lakes and seas. A thicker atmosphere will also lead to decreased solar and cosmic radiation and more atmospheric pressure, and thus, we will be able to throw away the suits.
But before we throw away the suits, we will have to make the air breathable. This task, with the current technology, is said to take over a thousand years to complete. This is the final challenge in the way of the human species going multi-planetary. The human species is a very adaptable one concerning its genes. We have evolved over the years to survive whatever conditions we planned to settle into. The scientific community has now placed its bet on this ingenious adaptability that they hope will mold the humans on Mars to live in conditions with lower gravity and lower oxygen.
Colonizing Mars will, without any doubts, be the greatest leap for mankind. The possibilities that will emerge from doing so can only be captured in fiction by our generation. Colonizing Venus, mining asteroids and comets, interstellar space-travel, Speed-of-light travel, the things to come are endless. These brave endeavors of a bunch of organic blobs, living on a space-rock will end up as tales of adventures woven in the fabric of space-time.
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