Living on Mars

Living on Mars

By: Kai Staal

Yahoo news has a great headline: “Scientists propose one-way trips to Mars.” We have the technology, yet all we need is an “eccentric billionaire,” and some people who don't mind spending the rest of their lives in the exploration of Mars. You may ask, why only a one-way trip? Don't we want to see these people come back to our home planet?   The answer is yes, of course we want our astronauts to come home, however, a one way trip would cut costs by 80 percent! The author compares the early settlers who came to North America, not expecting to see their home ever again, with how astronauts should behave.  The colonization of Mars is quite within reach, and scientists believe it is imperative that we explore the new planet, ultimately to create a “lifeboat” for humanity if our home planet one day became uninhabitable.

            Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor, is the mastermind behind this seemingly preposterous idea. Ed Mitchell of Apollo 14 commented that the proposed trip is premature, and that “we aren’t ready for this yet.” Barak Obama is on board, but his plan sets the exploration date in the mid 2030s, and has the idea that the astronauts will definitely return home. "We want our people back," NASA spokesman Michael Braukus said.  Many scientists around the world are agreeing that humans must begin colonizing another planet, in order to save the human species from becoming extinct by a catastrophe on earth.  Now all this sounds a little pessimistic. Earth ending, death, extinction, unknown worlds… yet it is such a fascinating topic, and the fact that we are so close to achieving this goal makes it so real. Living on another planet has always been in space-age movies such as Star Wars, or Star Trek, but to come to the realization that those movies might actually be us in several decades is astonishing.

            The trip to mars would take 6 months, and once exposure to radiation and a lack of medical care set in, the person’s lifespan would be reduced.  This is a little oppressive; however, once they set up living quarters near a large ice cave, which would provide shelter from radiation, water, and oxygen, things would be okay.  Mars has surface gravity, a thin atmosphere, frozen water, carbon dioxide, and essential minerals. "The astronauts would go to Mars with the intention of staying for the rest of their lives, as trailblazers of a permanent human Mars colony," Shulze-Makuch writes. He and other scientists believe that Mars has enough abundant resources to help the colonists become self-sufficient over time. "We are on a vulnerable planet," Schulze-Makuch said. "Asteroid impact can threaten us, or a supernova explosion. If we want to survive as a species, we have to expand into the solar system and likely beyond."

            These are the thoughts of the 21^st century.  It is time to explore the universe and truly find out what is out there.  It can be terrifying, looking up there at black emptiness, yet there is so much we don’t know and so much we need to find out. Someday, maybe even during our lifetime, we will be able to witness the extraordinary event of living on Mars.