By: Reanna Chowdhury
Living on Mars. This concept has been a salient theme in the news for the past several years and has been widespread in sci-fi for even longer. With all the latest technology, missions, and new announcements from billionaires and tech corporations, the possibility of us becoming an interplanetary species starts to seem more and more realistic day by day. Nevertheless, Mars is still an incredibly appalling spot to visit. Yet there are plenty of Earthlings who would be delighted to take on these obstacles and become the first settlers on Mars. Plus, we already have all the technology needed to enable them to do so. Our necessities on the Red Planet are identical to those on Earth: shelter, oxygen, water, energy, and food, but how we will be able to obtain these is a bit trickier on Mars than on Earth. So let’s take a look at how we can deal with these needs with today’s technology to build a small Mars base that can provide for a small crew for up to a few decades.
Shelter
Shelter is even more pivotal on Mars than on Earth because the outdoors on Mars is not as desirable as the outdoors on Earth. Mars’s atmosphere is 100 times thinner than that of Earth’s, so it traps very little of the Sun’s heat. This, along with the fact that Mars is much farther from the Sun than Earth is, effectuates Mars’s average temperature of -63 degrees Celsius. The thin atmosphere’s magnetosphere is also tiny and does a poor job at shielding the planet from radiation. The surface of Mars endures 50 times more radiation than Earth, skyrocketing your chances of cancer, causing acute radiation sickness and genetic impairment. Three years on the surface of Mars surpasses the radiation limits NASA allows their astronauts to be exposed to in their entire lifetime. Spacesuits protect against UV rays a lot, but they do not provide sufficient defence against x-rays and gamma rays. This is why a Martian would have to remain indoors as much as possible and leave most of the outdoors work to robots, occasionally coming out to perform tasks a robot cannot do, or to repair a robot. However, a regular house will not cut it; radiation can still go through. Originally, the idea was that the crew would have to reside underground or their entire habitat would have to be covered in frozen CO2 (which can be extracted directly from Mars) and dirt. However, this would mean no windows, which is not a pleasant way to live. Luckily, a New York startup called AI Spacefactory has created an above-ground, four-story, egg-shaped Mars home called Marsha, which has won $500,000 from NASA. Marsha can be 3D printed on Mars using materials found on that planet. It’s made out of basalt, a rock found on Mars, and a recyclable bio-plastic. The hard basalt and egg shape make the building immensely strong, permitting it to persist for a long time in brutal Martian conditions. The plastic protects the crew from harmful cosmic rays.
Marsha also has a system that enables spacesuits to never enter the habitat and the astronauts to never be spacesuit-less outside. The spacesuits are fastened to the exterior of the building.
This is crucial because Mars has loads of Mars dust, which is toxic due to its high concentration of chlorine. You’ll be safe while you’re outside since you’ll be wearing a spacesuit that will conceal your face. However, space dust is very staticky and will stick to your spacesuit. If you enter the habitat with your spacesuit on, it will make the interior a mess, and there will be toxic dust everywhere.
Oxygen
0.16% of the Martian atmosphere is oxygen, and as mentioned before, the Martian atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere, nowhere near enough to keep us alive. Luckily, the Martian atmosphere is also 96% CO2, and CO2 is about 78% oxygen. An MIT scientist named Michael Hecht has invented a machine titled Moxie, which takes CO2 from the atmosphere and converts it into oxygen. This oxygen can then be pumped into the habitat. The habitat will necessitate round edges so that it can withstand the pressure discrepancies on the outside versus the inside. Fortunately, Marsha has got that covered, it already has round edges.
Water
If we settle near the poles, we’ll have an ample amount of available water. Mars has enough ice on its poles to cover virtually the entire planet with 30 feet of water. It also has tons of water underground. We can extract water from these two sources, plus there’s also some water in the atmosphere if we ever need it.
Energy
We need lots of energy of course, for example, to light and heat up Marsha. We can use solar panels, however, that may not be enough since Mars is millions of kilometres further from the Sun than Earth is. Mars also has severe dust tempests fairly frequently that will block out even more solar energy. Wind power is not an option since there is scarcely any breeze on Mars. Neither is geothermal energy since Mars is frigid underground. Until a better alternative comes out, we will have to pair solar energy with nuclear energy.
Food
Mars’s soil is not great for agriculture as it is alkaline and does not possess sufficient nitrogen. We can decontaminate and extensively fertilize the soil, but that method will take a long time and is energy inefficient. Rather, we can use aquaponics where we can grow plants and fish together in the water. This way, the astronauts will have both meat and veggies, so there will be more diverse, nutritious, and delicious meals! Still, most of their food will have to be dry food and vitamin supplements brought from Earth.
Other Problems
Low gravity. Low gravity leads to many medical issues. It makes your muscles relax, causing them to lose mass and makes you weaker. The relaxation of muscles also lessens the pressure your bones are receiving, which makes them less dense. Less dense bones are weaker, hollower, and will fracture easily. The deficiency of gravity boosts your chances of osteoporosis as well. The fix for this would be copious levels of exercise daily.
Spending all your time with the same people, having a repetitive quotidian routine and hardly having any interactions with the outside world are not very healthy. Astronauts will have to pass lots of psychological screening prior to this journey to ascertain they are mentally stable to not go mad under such conditions. We would also need to swap the crew members every few years to avert profound physical and psychological damage. Marsha helps with this cause; it is brightly lit to keep its inhabitants in a happier mood.
Finally, we would have to be extra meticulous when sending people up there because if they had an emergency and required aid or resources from Earth, it would take us at least 7 months to get there, depending on the positions of Earth and Mars in their orbits.
Caption: When Mars is in opposition, it is the closest to Earth than it will ever be, so a trip to Mars would be the shortest at this time. Sadly, this only occurs once every 26 months.
There you go, a modest mars base that can serve a small number of astronauts at a time and could survive a few decades. This technology has lasted for a couple of years now, so the question is, why aren’t there any missions to send humans to Mars yet? The answer is obvious: money. The estimated expenditure to send four humans to Mars for the first time would be approximately $6 billion. This covers most of what I have outlined above. Manned missions after that would take around $4 billion per four individuals since we would have already established a Mars base on our first visit. Tech companies are already working to drop these numbers by trying to make spaceflight cheaper. The first space mission will likely take place in the near future. NASA says they will launch their first Mars mission in the 2030s. Elon Musk says that he is highly confident that SpaceX will land the first humans on Mars in 2026. After a few missions, our next step is terraforming; Musk states that we will complete the first Martian city by 2050. These dates are not too far away, most of us will live to see whether or not these claims will come true.
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