Home away from home: Landers would shelter the first wave of Mars explorers, until more permanent accommodation could be arranged, perhaps underground. As depicted in the illustration, living conditions would be cramped and not dissimilar to those endured by Antarctic explorers.
Credit: ESA
Read all about human missions to Mars here in Next stop: Mars
1. The first astronauts to Mars may never come back
Much of the difficulty of going to Mars is providing for a return journey. But what if the first colonists never came back?
Most people react to this suggestion with instinctive horror. I recall my own sense of discomfort when I met an ageing American scientist who claimed to have trained for a one-way mission to the Moon in the pre-Apollo days. But Mars isn’t the Moon. With the right equipment, astronauts could live there for years. A one-way trip to Mars isn’t a suicide mission.
An initial colony of four astronauts, equipped with a small nuclear reactor and a couple of rover vehicles, could make their own oxygen, grow food and even initiate building projects using local raw materials. Supplemented by shipments from home, the colony could be sustained indefinitely, and eventually become self-sufficient. To be sure, the living conditions would be cramped and uncomfortable, but so was the Antarctic for explorers a century ago.
Most of the danger of space flight lies in launches and landings, as the two shuttle disasters horrifically demonstrated. Eliminating the trip home would therefore slash the overall risk of the mission. Obviously this strategy carries its own risks, but there would be no shortage of volunteers. A century ago, explorers set out to trek across Antarctica in the full knowledge they could die in the process. Why should it be different today?
Would NASA entertain the idea of a one-way policy for human Mars exploration? Probably not. But other, more adventurous space agencies might. A joint Indian-Chinese colony on Mars by 2100 is not only technologically feasible, it is also politically realistic. The next giant leap for humankind won’t come without risk. — Paul Davies, Director of Beyond, a ‘cosmic thinktank’ at Arizona State University.
2. Mars astronauts may burrow beneath the surface
Beautiful as it is, the surface of Mars is an inhospitable place, lacking water and oxygen, subject to unearthly cold, bathed in radiation and host to blinding dust storms. Many scientists think that to get away from these problems, the way to go is down.
Many of the craters on Mars are volcanic and share features with similar craters on Earth. These include lava tubes, formed when lava begins to cool and solidify. On Earth, lava tubes have provided shelter for creatures as diverse as hawks, iguanas, goats and pirates. On Mars, they may supply ready-made ‘rooms’ for living and storage.
It would be good to have metres of dirt over your head and around you, anyhow, to shield from radiation and insulate from the cold. Models of habitats on both the Moon and Mars have often involved the excavation of regolith, to be piled on and around prefabricated structures. But if lava tubes turn out to be common just beneath the Martian surface, colonists may be able to use these ready-made tunnels and save significant time, energy, and resources. — Joe Haldeman, science fiction writer and author of The Forever War.
3. The key to surviving a long missions to Mars is being with people who know how to laugh.
Whatever else happens on the first mission to Mars, the crew won’t be bored. I’ve been to Mars plenty of times myself, so I know from experience. OK, I’ve not actually been to the Red Planet. But in several simulated missions conducted out of the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, located some 1,400 kilometres from the North Pole, I’ve gained some insights.
Despite the fact the crew will be on Mars for a year-and-a-half, there will be plenty to do. Between field exploration, laboratory work, reportage, equipment repair and daily chores, the workload will be intense. Forget psychological studies of bored navy personnel at isolated postings pining for the bright lights of San Diego. Such types won’t be on the mission. Instead there will be scientists who have waited and trained for years to get a chance to go to Mars. Their chief problem won’t be boredom, but overwork. I’ve seen this with my own crews at Flashline Station, where I repeatedly had to order scientific teams to stop at 9 pm.
Some have worried about crews forced to live in tight quarters, but this shouldn’t be a problem. Given the right band of comrades, who like each other, trust each other and can laugh at the inevitable frustrations, malfunctions, mistakes, and screw-ups, the problem of long-term close confinement can be dealt with in stride.
The key? When you go to Mars, make sure you do it with people who know how to laugh. — Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society.
4. A Mars colony is unlikely to stage a revolution
Would Mars colonists eventually revolt and throw off the shackles of Earth? Probably not, says science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the award-winning Mars trilogy. Or at least not as long as the Red Planet hasn’t been terraformed. That’s because a pre-terraforming Mars colony won’t be like 19th-century Australia, it’ll be more like today’s Antarctic bases.
Just as Antarctic scientists have never moved to form their own nation, Mars scientists are likely to remain firmly tied to Earth. “[In Antarctica], there are a few who’ve made it their life,” Robinson says, “but most come back to the ‘world’.”
A bigger problem will be the dynamics of small, isolated groups. Bases will need either to be large enough to function as small towns (several hundred to 1,000 people), or small, like expedition camps. “There’s an awkward size of around 120 where it’s small enough to know everybody, but big enough for cliques and jealousy,” Robinson says. “Like high school, with ‘in’ crowds and ‘out’ crowds.”
If there were a revolution, he doubts it would be like America in 1776. Rather, people tired of waiting for the government to decide whether or not to make Mars more habitable, might take matters into their own hands. “You could get ‘Rambo’ terraforming,” he says. “That would be the revolt.” — Richard A. Lovett, science writer in the Portland, Oregon.
5. A human could do in mere days what it's taken many years for rovers to achieve
Steven Squyres finds it easy to fantasise about visiting Mars. That’s because, as principal investigator on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission, he’s spent more hours ‘on’ Mars than just about anyone.
He compares the surface of Mars to the vast red-rock deserts of Australia or the American Southwest: stark, desolate, yet eerily beautiful. But it’s also a land totally devoid of the comforting hues of water and life. “The colours are painted from a very narrow palate,” he says. “Everything is in shades of brown and orange and pink. I think initially it would strike you as monotonous, until you got used to the subtleties.”
For generations, scientists have been studying Mars at an arm’s length by means of telescope, orbiting probe, and ever-more-sophisticated landers. This makes it one of the most thoroughly explored worlds in the Solar System. But none of this even remotely compares to what a true geologist could do.
“A well-trained human could do in days what it’s taken our two intrepid rovers four years to do,” says Scott Hubbard, head of NASA’s Mars program from 2000 to 2001.
That’s because humans, unlike robots, can think on their feet. We’re better able to figure out where to take rock samples, drill for water, or search for life. We can enter caves, climb steep hills, and descend into craters. Plus, we’re inherently curious.
The biggest problem would be focussing that curiosity. For a geologist, even a short trip to Mars would be like being the proverbial kid in a candy store. “You’re going to see things no one else has ever seen,” says Hubbard. “And over the next rise is going to be something even more strange and wondrous.”
Squyres agrees. “I’m a robot guy,” he says, “but there’s so much more a human is capable of, even in a spacesuit.” — RAL.
6. Astronauts on Mars may home brew their own rocket fuel
Need a recipe for homemade Martian rocket fuel? Try methane plus oxygen, says Robert Zubrin. You can make it from hydrogen carried from Earth, plus carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere. The formula is simple enough: CO2 + 4H2 g CH4 + 2H2O. Then electrolyse the water to get oxygen (and get back part of your hydrogen in the process). You can either burn this to power the rovers, or if you prefer a liquid, convert it to methanol by reacting it with steam.
Later generations of colonists could free themselves from imported hydrogen by electrolysing water melted from the Martian permafrost or mined from the polar ice caps. This would allow them to make ever-more-complex hydrocarbons such as ethylene, which, Zubrin notes, is great for making plastics.
They could also make ammonia by reacting hydrogen with nitrogen from the Martian atmosphere. That’s great for fertilising vegetables grown in greenhouses made from Martian plastic – and is another cog in an expanding chemical industry. — RAL.
