COLONISING SPACE #2

 COLONISING MARS

Elon Musk the man whose ambition is to settle humankind on “the red planet” in the next 5 years. So how can we settle on Mars what are the things that mars can offer? What will be the challenges faced by the early settlers there? Let’s have a look...

Well it may look good on paper and theories that humans can settle on a different planet but in reality it’s a very tedious job, though it has many similarities with our planet such as moons Deimos and Phobos, polar ice caps just like we have Arctic and Antarctic poles and a day barely longer than a day on earth which is 24 hours and 39 min long compared to 23 hours and 56 min on earth. Despite these similarities Mars is a cold radioactive desert, the ground is poisonous due to rust present all around (which makes it look red).Almost no kind of energy can be harnessed on Mars as there is almost no wind, the sunlight which reaches there is very low, it has a cold core unlike earth which has a hot core also there are continuous dust storms all over the planet.

Mars has lost its magnetic field due to which solar radiation reaches its surface which is about the 50 times of the radiation that reaches in earth, certainly it is very harmful for the settlers on the Mars, if these setbacks are not enough, the Martian atmosphere contains a large amount carbon dioxide which is harmful for humans and also can not be used in any kind of work. It too has less gravity than on earth only 38% of earth’s gravity is there which can cause muscle loss and cardiovascular problems in the humans who settle there.

These were the problems now what about solutions they can be...

For energy we can transport nuclear fuel from earth to power the Martian base, to protect the settlers from radiation we can reduce their duration for working in open ground or we can use robots to do the on ground work and covering the base with Martian soil and solid carbon dioxide to reduce the risk of radiation indoors, to cope with less gravity the early settlers must perform physical exercise to cope with the loss of muscles and cardiovascular problems.

Settling on Mars is a tough task but we are stubborn and we like extreme challenges.......

Mars Facts | All About Mars – NASA’s Mars Exploration Program