Human life on Mars?

Providing that the problems of travelling to Mars could be solved, would it be possible for man to live there? Mars does have an atmosphere, which provides some protection from solar and cosmic radiation, although it is much thinner than Earth’s (about 0.7% of Earth’s atmosphere). It seems there is water on Mars too, following recent observations by NASA’s exploration robots. And a Martian day is very similar to Earths, (24 hours and 39 minutes), although a year is equivalent to about 1.88 Earth years.

However, conditions on the surface of Mars are much harsher than what we are used to on Earth. It is much colder for a start, with a mean surface temperature of -63°C, resulting in no un-frozen bodies of water. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is too low for humans to survive without pressure suits and Mars has no magnetosphere to deflect solar winds, (a stream of charged particles, i.e. a plasma, which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun). And the Martian atmosphere consists mainly (95%) of carbon dioxide. An unprotected human would lose consciousness in about 20 seconds and would not survive more than a minute or so on the surface of Mars.

It seems clear then, we cannot simply set up camp -  so how can human life be sustained on Mars? If our astronauts are to live there, they’ll require a wide range of support systems in order to create suitable conditions. They will need power, light, air, food, water and heat as a well as a place to work, rest and live that will insulate them from the cold and provide shielding from dangerous solar radiation and a transportation and communication system that can withstand very low temperature..

All this is no small task. One solution would be to establish space colonies. As with the early manned missions to the moon, the first manned missions to Mars would probably take small tentative steps, sometimes referred to as ‘Flags and Footprints’. Progression towards colonisation will be the establishment of permanent bases, which begin to create an infrastructure from which other activities can grow. One proposal for early manned missions to Mars is a ‘live-off-the-land’ approach and an active effort is underway to simulate these early bases with the Mars Analogue Research Station Programme at Devon Island in Canada and in Utah, USA.

Another solution would be to alter the planets atmosphere to make it more like Earth. The process of transforming a planet, moon or other body to make it hospitable for humans is known as terraforming, (literally, "Earth-shaping"). Humans currently do not possess the technological or economic means to terraform another planet or moon, and there is some scientific debate over whether it would even be possible, or how stable its climate would be once terraformed. Terraforming even by the standards of possible technologies available in the near future, will involve timescales in the hundreds of years. There is also a philosophical debate as to whether terraforming other worlds is an ethical endeavor, as any life that does occupy Mars, for example any microscopic life not yet discovered, would be destroyed.

A manned mission to Mars is clearly not going to come cheap. Experts say that the costs and commitment required to get people to Mars, or even back from the moon, should not be understated. An informal estimate of the cost of the expedition is (US)1 trillion dollars, and it is expected that these costs would rise. To put this into context, the current annual budget for NASA is just (US)15 billion dollars. The additional total annual foreign aid needed to alleviate global poverty is (US)50 billion dollars, half of what this mission would cost.

So is it worth it? The money it would take to achieve this goal could be, certainly by some people’s views, better spent here on Earth. A human Mars exploration program is certainly an ambitious undertaking, filled with danger and the unknown. Every aspect of mission requirements must be investigated in fine detail before departure because there will be no quick return to, or supply from Earth in the event of the unexpected.

NASA and George Bush clearly think we’ll get our monies worth from such an endeavour. It is safe to say that a crewed mission to Mars currently lies on the very edge of man’s technical ability. The success of this mission would provide us with a better understanding of Mars as well as a better understanding of the evolution of our own planet. It would undoubtedly stand as a testament to the possibilities of human technology.

For more information

Mars images - 360 degree panoramas
http://www.panoramas.dk/mars.html

NASA - Mars exploration program
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/

European Space Agency (ESA) - Human Spaceflight and Exploration
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/