A second home: Mars

by

     Chinmaya Srivatsa .K

Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash

Introduction to the planet

 Ever since the discovery of this red celestial object by Galileo Galilei in the year 1610, this planet has taken our breath away and left us awestruck. Galileo Galilei discovered this planet using a primitive telescope during September of 1610. He became the first man to observe the planet using a telescope. Nowadays, millions observe it during the last week of July of every year when it is closest to our Earth, many countries are planning unmanned space missions to Mars and a few countries are even planning to colonise Mars. If you are interested in the modern history and future of human activities on Mars, this is the right article for you. 

Geographic factors

 Mars has a number of interesting geographical factors which are similar to Earth’s including Mountains, Valleys, Plains, Volcanoes and Elevated Plains. But, the Martian surface has geographical factors more drastic than anything found on Earth. The tallest mountain on Mars is about 25 km above the surface which makes it 3 times the height of Mount Everest and the deepest crater is 9 km below the surface called Hellas Impact Crater. These geographic factors also come with a boon that due to temperatures, all water is either in vapour form or stored in the northern ice caps. This means that we get a lot of continuous plain land for expansion. The northern plains which are near to the Northern Ice caps which occupy one-third of the Martian surface are completely flat with an elevation of average -4m . The total Martian surface is 144.8m km ² so, one third means about 48.3m km ². This means that, if we use the whole of this plains for urbanisation, we will get about 3 times the land we have on earth for urbanisation. This is the reason why humans have always looked to Mars for a secondary planet. One more reason it that Mars is the closest planet to Earth other than Venus.  

Other than topographic factors, Mars has a very interesting atmosphere. Its atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s making it unsuitable for advanced life forms. The average atmospheric pressure on Earth is about 101,325 Pa whereas on Mars the same is 610 Pa.The Martian air is made up of 95% CO₂ ; 2.6% N ; 1.9% Ar ; 0.1% O₂ ; 0.7 % CO and 0.03% H₂O. This means that life on Mars is not possible without external life support systems. Until now no life has been found on Mars but there are theories that Mars did have life millions of years ago but then couldn’t support life anymore and became the barren land we know today.

Challenges of colonising Mars 

Mars has been a challenging part of Human Being’s space history. Various problems stand as a wall between Earth and Mars. Many of these problems need to be solved using many tools together and not just one tool. These tools will be the innovations and inventions that human beings’ minds will bring out. But first, what are these problems blocking our way to Mars? These challenges are: Radiation: Mars has no global Magnetosphere shielding it from any solar ionizing radiation and nor does the ISS. But, the radiation on the surface of Mars is 2.5 times higher than that on ISS owing to a thin atmosphere and no magnetosphere. Long-term exposure to such rays can cause cancer in astronauts and with being on Mars, there would be no cure. So, to avoid this we would need to design houses that are radiation-proof and also astronaut suits that are radiation-proof. This means zero or no exposure to rays making it safer for humans to colonise Mars.  

Cheap transport: Cheap transport to the red planet which can carry both cargo and humans to get transported to Mars. This was a challenge until Starship’s development as the biggest rocket before starship had a launch cost of 1.2 billion USD ( SLS ) and was impractical to carry out missions to Mars. This meant that they needed a cheaper spaceship which was maybe not cheap to develop but cheap to use.  

History of colonisation 

Many countries have dreamed of being the first to colonize Mars. But, until today no human has been to Mars. During the height of the Space war between the two superpowers Russia and the USA, a newborn country Zambia which got its indipendance from the British in 1964 planned to go to Mars and by doing so, they would beat both the USA and Russia in their competition. Zambian director of the National Academy of Science Edward Makuka Nkoloso openly said in a newspaper that the small country will be going to Mars. He said that he would send a spaceship with a Spacegirl, 2 cats and a missionary to mars in a spaceship. He also told that the spacegirl & the 2 cats would be trained and the Christian Missionary need not enforce Christianity upon the primitive Martians if they did not want it. The participants of this project were called Afronauts. They were to be sent to Mars in 3 metre long drums called D-Kalu. These were made of aluminium & copper and according to Makaku, they were space-worthy. But, he couldn’t launch these due to a human-right violation and fund crunches. By 1969 when Americans landed on the moon, the recruits to his space program lost trust in the program and left it. His dreams died with him in 1989 when he died a natural death. But, the technology nowadays has advanced a lot and the dream of colonising Mars is no longer a dream. It is in the transition of becoming a reality. 

Even though Zambia failed, NASA took a space towards colonisation of Mars and sent astronauts to the Moon in 1969 in the Apollo missions where Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 landed on the moon and came back. Among these, the first mission, the Apollo 11 carried astronauts Neil Armstrong and Micheal Collins became the first humans to step on the moon. This became a landmark in space history and made opportunities for further space travel to Mars seem possible.

Ideas for colonising Mars 

The 21st century saw an uprise in interest to colonise Mars due to advanced technology and the deregulations to allow private companies to compete in spaceflight. During this time, private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and United Launch Alliance were founded to explore, learn from and open space for tourism. Now, these Private Space players now own the playground in space exploration. SpaceX has plans to colonise Mars, Blue Origin too has the same plans, Virgin Galactic is undertaking tourist flights to space and United Space Alliance provides rockets to customers. But, this is not enough for spaceflight. We must think about the habitats for astronauts, their life support systems and food for them. Thus, many inventors have come forward with these amazing ideas.  

MARSHA ( MARS HAbitat ): MARSHA is an engineering marvel that proposes to use local resources of Mars to create Martian habitats for astronauts that will protect them from the dangerous cosmic rays of the sun and give astronauts a lab and a comfortable space to live in. This project has been awarded 5.00,000 USD by NASA to continue their research. This habitat has been constructed on Earth by its creators AI SpaceFactory and will be used as a hotel by the company to earn further profits which they can put into developing their product further. The more interesting thing about MARSHA is that it is completely 3-d printed and no human interruption is required. 

NASA’s LSS: NASA has been developing Life Support Systems for the last 40 years. This has led to a major development in the technologies that it uses. Any Life Support System usually does many functions including cleaning of the air and getting it rid of the Carbon Dioxide, Cleaning the urine of astronauts to save water, checks & controls the humidity of the air and supplies extra Oxygen from cylinders if required. These functions do not perform to their level best too. For example, 74% of the water can be saved using the existing Life Supporting Systems on the International Space Station. But, this is not enough for deep space missions such as missions to Neptune etc… where humans dream to go. NASA is now developing a new LSS which can easily handle upto 98% of water conservation. This will enable multiple deep-space missions. 

SpaceX’s Starship: SpaceX has developed a rocket of Height 324 ft which can easily carry 100 metric tonnes. This rocket is called Starship. It is aimed to carry 100 tonnes of cargo load to Mars. Starship will have its first test launch in 2020 and will later be used for space missions to Mars and further. This rocket will have a per launch cost of about 2 million USD and has a development cost of 10 billion USD.

Space Launch System ( SLS ) 

 NASA The Space Launch System of NASA has been developed over a period of 10 years from 2011 to 2020. This super-heavy-lift rocket can lift upto 130 tonnes of cargo in total and upto 45 tonnes of cargo into a heliocentric orbit. This rocket is a non-reusable one and its boosters will fall off into the ocean after launch. This rocket is aimed to take humans to Mars after its first mission, Artemis , which will land 2 humans on the Moon in 2024. This rocket will have a per launch cost of 500 million USD and has a development cost of 18.6 billion USD. 

Saturn V

 Saturn V used to be the world’s biggest rocket till starship and it was the only rocket which could send humans beyond low-earth orbit from 1969 - 1973. This rocket was used by NASA for the Apollo missions which landed on and flew - by the moon. This rocket could take upto 140 tonnes to low-earth orbit and go even upto Saturn. This rocket has not only carried the Apollo missions but, it has even ferried the American Skylab space station to low earth orbit and Mission Cassini-Huygens to Saturn. Its project cost was 49.9 Billion USD and launch cost of 1.23 billion USD. Its status is of a retired rocket due to its high launch costs but, if it was not, it could have been used to take humans to Mars. 

Terraforming Mars 

Terraforming or terraformation (literally, "Earth-shaping") of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable by Earth-like life. There is a plan to terraform Mars so that we can completely use it as a Planet 2 but, doing that is a star-wars scale project. It would need us to set up solar panels across the whole Martian surface or build 10 million Fusion power plants for the energy requirements of terraforming Mars. But, we have only under - development fusion power plant on Earth! How can we expect to build 10 million plants on Mars? Thus, the challenge of terraforming Mars is huge but, still we should not lose hope on colonising Mars. We should also work more on bettering our earth than trying to change another planet’s geography to live on it.  

Conclusion

 In conclusion, all anyone can say is that even if we move to Mars as our primary planet, we will never have the comforts that we have back here on Earth and improving the Earth will be a better option than exploring other celestial objects for the Humans to settle on. Keeping ourselves safe and sustainable is a more cost effective option for continuation of the human race. But, if we travel to other planets in pursuit of knowledge, it is human nature and no one can do anything about it. This might just as well enable us to find even more sustainable solutions to continue our stay on our mother earth. 

Thank you.  

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