Will Humanity One Day Live on Mars?
![Image Attribution: By NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://marcykennedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Mars_Hubble.jpg)
Image Attribution: By NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The next milestone in space exploration seems to be putting people on Mars.
NASA has mentioned plans to place human beings on Mars sometime in the 2030s. Non-profits like the Netherlands-based Mars One Project and private businesses like Elon Musk’s SpaceX intend to do it sooner than that.
While there are many scientific reasons for wanting to explore Mars, the reason for Mars exploration that earns the most press seems to be colonization. Many people see Mars as a backup planet to our own.
I’m a science fiction and fantasy girl. In theory, I love the idea of venturing out into the universe.
But I also have some questions about the feasibility and practicality of something like colonizing Mars.
Our planet is more hospitable than Mars, and yet look at the large portions of it that aren’t lived in because they’re not friendly to human life. Our vast stretches of desert. Mountain peaks. The depths of the ocean. Antarctica.
In an interview with The Telegraph, award-winning science writer Stephen Petranek responded to similar objections with this: “I suspect Antarctica’s a pretty good analogy of how we can build habitats in a hostile environment. The food’s pretty good, there’s a lot of entertainment, people have a lot of camaraderie. There are now several year-long stations at the South Pole. The French have one and they have fabulous food.”
While that sounds fantastic, I do think he’s overlooked a few key points.
No one lives permanently in Antarctica. The stations are there year-round; the people cycle in and out. There is no indigenous population.
It doesn’t have an infrastructure. While the science stations there do have hydroponics bays to grow some fruits and vegetables, most of the food still needs to be shipped in frozen, including all meat products. Clothing, medical supplies, and all the other non-edible necessities of life are brought in. They’re not produced there.
To put it another way, life in Antarctica is possible because it takes place on a planet that already provides for people’s needs. Life there isn’t sustainable in and of itself, cut off from the outside world.
It’s also on a planet with oxygen. In a region with plenty of available water (albeit frozen water). And where temperatures are concerned, Antarctica is actually a little bit warmer.
I’m by no means an expert on space travel. I’m not a scientist. I’m not an astronomer. I’m not a biologist. And I’m not saying it will never happen. Technology has changed so much in the past 150 years that only a fool would say that technology won’t continue to advance further in the next 150.
But I wonder. I wonder if we’re searching for answers off-planet when maybe we should be searching for more ways to save this one. Because the more we look at the universe, the clearer it becomes how unique and special Earth really is.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Will future generations colonize Mars? Would the time and resources being spent on reaching Mars be better spent on finding solutions here on Earth?
(I welcome disagreement and discussion on this blog as long as it is polite and well-reasoned. Open discussions help us all grow. Name calling and assertions without logical arguments to back them up serve no one. If you want to engage in those, you’ll need to find another place to do it 🙂 )
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Jan 19, 2016 @ 14:09:50
Hi Marcy,
I can’t believe you failed to mention Weir’s The Martian. Whether one likes the book, it teaches an important lesson: an author can start out indie (Weir did because the original version was a download on his website) and enjoy huge success. The Martian, while not exactly about a Mars colony, exhibits many of the dangers an extended stay on Mars might bring.
My own novel about Mars colonization (More than Human: The Mensa Contagion) also discusses some of the pitfalls. While not enjoying anywhere near the success of The Martian, I do make the same error Weir made: I mention the low atmospheric pressure in my book and then go on to talk about landing with huge parachutes! No excuse for that, so I’ll change it in a second edition. The opening scene in The Martian (both book and movie) has the same error–Mars has storms but they’d never have enough force to bring down habitats and equipment. Those errors, of course, don’t ruin a good story, in my modest opinion, but trolls AKA amateur scientists were jumping on Weir and they’d be jumping on me if my book was popular. True hard sci-fi fans are a bit more forgiving; they accepted the original Star Trek (the communicator is our cell phone, but the transporter is impossible considering our current knowledge about entangled quantum states). All sci-fi extrapolates science. Every scientist or ex-scientist knows the danger of extrapolation, so the sci-fi writer is bound to make some slips.
Many sci-fi novels and stories have talked about Mars colonization. Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy is an example (one reviewer compared my book to his trilogy–a feel-good moment, to be sure, but I don’t see it). In a sense, it doesn’t make much difference if it ever happens, because we’ve done it in our imagination with sci-fi books. Of course, from the point of human destiny, it’s a legit question whether we should continue to push our frontiers beyond this planet. It’s a lot more fun to think we can.
r/Steve
Jan 19, 2016 @ 18:33:17
I thought about mentioning The Martian as an example of how harsh an environment it really is 🙂
I actually don’t mind if writers take a bit of license with the science as long as they do so as a conscious choice in the interest of making the story better. I do know other readers, though, who feel the story is ruined if the facts aren’t perfect. It’s a calculated risk we can take as writers to “fudge” certain elements.
And I do hope writers continue to write about the possibility of colonizing Mars even if I’m not convinced it’s in our near future. I love the option of arm-chair exploration.
Jan 19, 2016 @ 14:44:36
A very interesting and thought-provoking post, Marcy. Thanks!
I was born before the space age and have watched tremendous leaps in technology during my lifetime. I can’t imagine what will happen in the next sixty years.
I believe humans are destined to explore the reaches of space just as we were destined to explore the reaches of Earth. I recently wrote an article on the fateful Franklin Expedition who perished in search of the Northwest Passage back in 1846. Their voyage employed the day’s cutting-edge of technology which, ironically, did them in.
I think the quest to reach Mars and eventually populate it is a natural evolution of the human species. The development of new technology will allow it to happen in the next few decades, just as the development of new technology allowed sailing the Northwest Passage to be routine today.
Jan 19, 2016 @ 18:25:15
I’m all for exploration. I’m also, like you, no scientist. Far from it. This universe has much to teach us and that knowledge could go a long way towards guiding the human race, but before we make ourselves permanent residents on distant worlds we might want to master managing this one. Settling other planets (or moons) while we’re in the midst of destroying this one is more of the same conceit and arrogance that has led to our present difficulties. A touch of humility and a healthy dose of gratitude would go a long way towards our future. We’re caretakers here, but have come to see ourselves as owners instead, owners who operate a disposable society. Colonization? We need to earn the right and the test is taking place on Earth.
Jan 19, 2016 @ 22:09:42
Interestingly, in many books and movies over the years, the colonization of other planets has to do not with space exploration, but the fact that a world is dying and they need a new place to live and “prosper.” I always wondered how many centuries it would take for the colonies to spread and destroy another planet, only to start the cycle again.
Jan 20, 2016 @ 17:51:42
And now I’m wondering if a race that would destroy a jewel such as Earth would more cherish their next opportunity or simply transfer their destructive ways. Human history points to the later. It pains me to say that I see the cycle accelerating. How I wish that wasn’t true.
Jan 19, 2016 @ 22:05:38
Wonderful post! Although the colonization of Mars is only a tangential factor in the book, I have to ask: Have you read “Saturn Run” by John Sandford? It is an amazing book, even though I had trouble grasping some of the concepts because I’m not a technical person and I couldn’t fathom the distances mentioned. But it is an awesome story nonetheless.
Jan 20, 2016 @ 14:12:05
Christina,
Dystopian sci-fi provides many voices who have complained about what we’re doing to ourselves and Gaia. From Wells’s The Time Machine to Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (sp?), those topics are pretty well covered.
“Conceit and arrogance” are NOT the reasons for space exploration. I used to declare victory climbing a foothill near my home and reaching the top. Why do it? Because it was there! To blindly focus on our little corner of an immense Universe also represents conceit and arrogance because believing we are so damn special closes our minds to other opportunities to stretch our minds.
I’m a member of Nature Conservancy and support many other environmental and species-preserving causes. I’m also an ex-scientist who knows the dangers in foolish extrapolations. We know how to fix our planet, but we don’t do it. We don’t know what’s “out there” but should go see. Both are adventures. Both are challenges we should not ignore.
r/Steve
Jan 20, 2016 @ 18:47:16
Stephen, as I say, I’m all for exploration. Pluto and Ceres were 2015 highlights and walking a path for the first time remains a thrill. Those driven by curiosity and the desire to expand human knowledge are a gift to humankind and help provide answers. The problem is more often those who follow, those driven not to explore, but to exploit. Yes, challenges are opportunities, yet here we are still burning, fracking, and spilling. Trends that have endured over the ages are human selfishness and shortsightedness. Were a duplicate Earth right next door I wouldn’t hesitate to explore it, but colonize it…? Not yet. We haven’t earned the right. My spiritual self says that’s why there aren’t any nearby Earth-like planets.
Jan 20, 2016 @ 19:34:56
Christina,
Let’s take that perception to its ultimate conclusions. The ETs should just visit us and exterminate us like the rats we are, right? End the scourge we represent for the Universe? I remember one excellent short story where we are descended from vermin that escape from an ET’s ship. Another novella called “The Marching Morons” shows how dumbing down our daily lives can have disastrous consequences (do we really need a warning that a hair dryer isn’t to be used in the shower?). Such stories teach us humility, not arrogant pride.
But you have a valid point: will the religious fanaticism and intolerance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s first settlers be carried to the stars? Will the ethnic cleansing launched against Native Americans define our relationships with native cultures on other Earths? Will the exploitation and greedy profit seeking of modern corporations determine the economies of interstellar unions? These are all possible themes for sci-fi novels. They and many others have been considered.
BTW, there are probably many nearby Earth-like planets. We’ve detected many larger ones, but only a few E-sized ones (the techniques are being sharpened every year), It’s the epitome of arrogance and ignorance to assume ours is the only one in all those close solar systems. Stars within twenty light years of Sol are basically twins to our star. I don’t believe we’re special in the Universe; it’s myopia to see things that way. A geocentric view of the Universe ended with Copernicus. It’s time to move on. There are many planets, many stars, and many galaxies. We should celebrate the infinity of it all.
r/Steve