Is the Red Planet the Future Home of Humanity?

No other planet has captured the imagination of Earth-dwellers and inspired such lofty aspirations quite like Mars. While the Moon is a second-rate, dusty grey rock with a sign on its back saying ‘been there, done that’, Mars is a bastion of hope for civilization, a sizeable challenge that seems just within our grasp.

Our fascination with the Red Planet can be seen as far back as the Roman times when soldiers would pray to Mars, the God of War. And in recent years Marvin the Martian, Mars Attacks, and John Carter have captured the imaginations of people of all ages. In 2011, a Dutch non-profit organisation set in motion what they claim to be the first manned mission to colonise Mars. With plans to send four carefully selected individuals to the Red Planet in 2028, the Mars One mission has attracted criticism for its budget, timeframe, the selection process, and their plans to turn the whole ordeal into a reality TV show. Find out everything you need to know about the Mars One mission here: What is the Mars One Mission?

 So should we be gearing up to leave our planet behind and start fresh on Mars?

Unfortunately, we aren’t quite there yet.  Out of 42 unmanned missions to Mars, only 20 have been successful so far, and no one is in any rush to put people in danger just yet. The technology required to sustain life so far away from home just doesn’t exist yet, and if it does, it hasn’t been properly tested in a Martian environment. Since no man has ever set foot on Mars, we simply don’t know what will be required.

High on the list of things to worry about before putting people on Mars is oxygen – or more specifically, converting the atmosphere on Mars into something we can breathe. You can read our following article to find out more about Mar’s atmosphere: Why Doesn’t Mars Have an Atmosphere Anymore? A 1979 report by scientist Benton Clark, he suggested that human expeditions to Mars could solve this problem by “extracting water from Martian dirt and splitting oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide.” This sounds like a great plan, but then we’ll also have to worry about food, as Mars is a little outside of the Just Eat delivery zone.  Since we don’t know what will be required to grow food, more research is required before we can start planning our Martian allotment.

The final hurdle mankind will have to scale before setting up camp on our closest neighboring planet will be transport. A huge amount of energy is required to leave Earth’s atmosphere, and once catapulted into space on a Mars-bound trajectory, there will be no slowing down since there is no atmosphere to offer any resistance. This could pose a problem when attempting to enter Mars’ atmosphere, as the spacecraft will risk being incinerated if it enters the atmosphere at high speed.

Despite these objections and seemingly insurmountable challenges, we haven’t yet given up hope of colonizing the Red Planet. With Earth’s natural resources dwindling and rubbish piling up literally everywhere, we may have no choice but to look to the stars for a new home. Let’s hope if it does come to this, we can treat our next home a little better than we’ve treated Ol’ Faithful Planet Earth.