Exploration of Life on Mars: Can Humans Really Survive on Mars? The answer is fabulous

Progress and Difficulties – Talking about the Mars Colonization Plan

Building a settlement on Mars sounds scary, but it's becoming a reality. As more countries' launchers enter Orbit, plans for Mars exploration have multiplied; not only that, but private airlines have also set their sights on the Red Planet.

Explorations to settle Mars are underway, but what are the obstacles to establishing a Mars colony?

janiecbros / iStock

1 NASA's (NASA) "Moon to Mars" propulsion

NASA's Artemis program will send humans to the lunar surface by 2024 (the first in decades) — with the goal of establishing sustainable development of Mars resources by the end of the 2020s. What this project learns will prepare humanity for the "next great leap": landing astronauts on Mars.

The Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft are important for NASA to explore space beyond the Moon. There, astronauts will test new instruments, tools, and equipment to develop humanity's wealth on Mars. On SLS and Orion, NASA will develop new human habitats, technologies, and life support systems to provide knowledge for establishing self-sufficient outposts far from Earth.

One day in the future, NASA plans to send humans to Mars. But for now, NASA is still in its preparations — sending machine explorers like Perseverance rover to develop technologies large enough to sustain humans on Mars.

SpaceX's starships will land on the Moon and Mars

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk aims to use their company's Starship rocket to achieve the most ambitious Mars colonization program. He wants his company to mass-produce Starship— which plans to transport 100 people per mold rocket.

"If we build 100 starships a year, we'll have 1,000 in 10 years, which means that about 100,000 people can be transmitted at every 'orbital synchrony' moment between Earth and Mars," Musk wrote on Twitter. What he calls "orbital synchronization" refers to the moment when Earth and Mars are almost aligned, at which point in time it takes the least amount of time to travel between Earth and Mars.

In other words, Musk envisions a staggering number of starship fleets departing every 26 months (the "orbital synchronization" period between Mars and Earth). "Load the Mars fleet into Earth orbit, and then every 26 months 1,000 ships leave for about 30 days. Battlestar Galactica (sci-fi IP produced by Glen A. Larson)..." Musk added in a separate tweet. The ideal service life of Starships is 20 to 30 years.

3 Elon Musk's "Millions" super colony

Of course, Elon Musk's goal is to establish a giant colony on Mars and turn humans into a "multi-planetary species." Musk says the creation of a "million-person" super colony is the reason he founded SpaceX in 2002 and the reason he's raised an astonishing amount of money over the past few years.

In 2017, Musk claimed he would build a city of 1 million people on Mars over the next century. In 2020, a Musk fan on Twitter asked him, "So by 2050, there will be 1 million people [on this Red Planet [Mars]?"?" ”

Musk replied succinctly: "Yes. ”

Of course, Musk's plan is easier said than done.

4 SpaceX still lacks a complete colonial architecture

No matter how ambitious Musk's plans for Mars may be, it's not unreasonable to question Musk's Timeline of Mars colonization posted on Twitter. Neither Musk nor NASA has come up with concrete, proven plans for how to build domes on Mars or allow humans to breathe and live.

While a location near the Red Planet's poles is known to be the ideal location to build a permanent settlement, SpaceX has yet to announce, and may not even develop, the architecture of habitats on Mars.

Taking a step back, Musk's starship itself has not been tested in outer space (as of February 2021), let alone on the moon or Mars. But once on Mars, it should be able to take off without a booster rocket — provided there's enough rocket fuel stored on Mars (of course, researchers are still figuring out how to make fuel on the Red Planet).

5 Jeff Bezos' "Blue Origin" program

In 2019, another tech billionaire — Jeff Bezos, now Amazon CEO and founder of space company Blue Origin — announced his space colonization program — starting with the moon.

"We're going to build a pathway to space," Bezos said at a news conference in Washington, according to ABC News. While Jeff Bezos says his team isn't yet clear how to build them, space colonization already has "some gates and some forerunners," and Bezos wants Blue Origin to become a leader in the space colonization industry.

"It's time to go back to the moon, this time for humans to stay on the moon (the U.S. lunar exploration program has been shelved for years)," Bezos said in a long space monologue. But given that his aerospace company is still in its early stages, Blue Origin still looks like it's lagging behind SpaceX.

6 "Space Hotel" – the study of human biology under subgravity conditions

Orbital Assembly Corporation recently announced plans to design and build a habitable "space hotel" in low-Earth orbit — using at least two prototypes to simulate Martian gravity. The Voyager Station — the name of their product — will be a luxurious space hotel, but also a scientifically sound orbital simulation platform where researchers can experiment with and study the effects of subgravity on the human body.

7 Challenges of building a space station in orbit around Mars

"We have a lot of zero-gravity data, we have a lot of data on unit gravity, but what in between?" Shawna Pandya, OAC's medical consultant, asked rhetorically. "In a seminal 2017 paper in nature magazine titled Artificial Gravity, researchers from different institutions set out to analyze how the human body responds to parts of subgravity."

"We try to study and answer these questions in a convenient place like low Earth orbit," Pandia said.

Maybe one day, NASA could build a similar platform in orbit around Mars — and create a space station for weary Earth-Martian travelers. But it still needs to test the landing of concepts such as building a space station in space by robots and moving to Mars, or directly using Martian resources to build a space station.

8 China wants to carve a piece of Mars for itself

In early 2020, China sent the spacecraft into orbit around Mars for the first time — the spacecraft known as Tianwen-1. The spacecraft separated a lander for landing on Mars and sent a rover to the surface of Mars.

Not only that, but the Chinese government's speech on Mars research suggests it may have grand plans for the Red Planet: "If we have the technology to go to Mars and give up on Mars, the younger generations will blame us," said Ye Peijian, a senior aerospace engineer and head of China's lunar exploration program, according to The Daily Beast. "If someone else gets to Mars first and occupies it, we will lose the right to visit Mars, which is the simplest truth."

While China has yet to develop (or publish) specific plans for colonizing Mars, it may fear that other countries or organizations will limit China's right to do so in the future, a motivator for the Chinese government to try to colonize Mars.

9 Russia's Mars program has been delayed several times

Russia has proposed several plans to send humans to Mars — from the Soviet Union's 1975 plan to launch six astronauts to live on Mars for 900 days, to Russia's 2002 goal of sending humans to Mars in 2015, most recently another Announcement by the Russian government in 2018 with the goal of landing on the Red Planet in 2019.

Despite repeated reversals of plans and extensions, the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) insists that Mars is the best planet to colonize. Roscosmos' executive director said: "Studies of the Sun show that despite the slow increase in temperature on Venus and Mars, they are getting hotter and hotter, which is one of the reasons why Mars may be the most likely to become a 'second Earth' from the prospect of terraformisation." Alexander Bloshenko said in an interview with TASS that he is Roscosmos' long-term executive director of projects and scientific research.

However, Russia still needs to develop (or publish) plans for travel to Mars and land and live on Mars before it can consider terraforming. Russia strongly disagrees with the modification of the Red Planet with a nuclear explosion (and Musk has this intention), but the idea of modifying Mars is still highly theoretical, and the process of practice could take centuries.

10 Complete colony buildings are required to settle on Mars

The United Arab Emirates also recently launched a spacecraft into orbit around Mars. The spacecraft, dubbed "Hope," is the first step in a long-term plan by Arab countries to recruit and send astronauts to Mars. The mission, called Mars 2117, is said to involve voyages around Earth and interstellar space. But judging from the name of the mission, it will most likely not be the first spacecraft in the UAE to land on Mars.

Almost every space nation and many private companies have plans to colonize Mars. However, the idea of a human colony on Mars is still in its very early stages — SpaceX is the only company actively conducting launch tests on spacecraft aimed at landing on Mars. With a new generation of space-friendly bases, resource facilities, rocket fuel production means, and tested landers becoming concrete, it's hard to determine when humans will colonize Mars.

BY: Brad Bergan

FY: Valerie Yang

If there is any infringement of the relevant content, please contact the author to delete it after the work is published

Please also obtain authorization to reprint, and pay attention to maintaining completeness and indicating source