The Mars Delusion

Cross Cultural Friction

Aug 27

4 min read

Updated: Sep 1

Written by Sihoon Yang

Edited by Firdavs Mirzoev

Humans love playing with Murphy's law, which states ‘anything that can go wrong, will go wrong’. In The Martian (2015), Matt Damon exemplifies this by surviving 549 sols on Mars (roughly 18 months in Earth time), growing his own food and rationing out his stores in extreme conditions (Scott). Such movies and novels have awestruck many people and left them wondering whether colonizing Mars is feasible and we should continue exploring Mars. However, life is not always sunshine and rainbows. While the current speed of development in technology is indeed rapid, there are several scientific limitations regarding this issue of Mars, which ultimately leaves us with a question: should we continue investing in Mars?

Most of us do not realize the impact the exploration of Mars has offered us in daily life. Space agencies, most famously NASA, do not simply burn cash in the atmosphere with these space missions. Instead, it comes with a great benefit to our society and Earth. Yes, we’re talking about spin-off technologies. Spin-off technologies are products or services that have found their way to transfer and adapt to everyday use on Earth, originally developed to give practical solutions to complex problems, in this case space exploration (“Spinoff”). That Nike Air trainers you see everyday initially came from a suit construction technology, which was an idea pitched by a former NASA engineer (Cavanagh). Red LEDs are used in space for growing plants, while they heal people on Earth, notably with the medical device WARP 10 (“Lighting the Way”). Water purification systems, solar energy and batteries, memory foams, scratch-resistant lenses, infant formula … and the list goes on and on (“Spinoff”).

Multibillionaire Elon Musk explicitly stated that SpaceX’s objective is to eventually build a self-sustaining city on Mars (Musk). Transforming human life to a multiplanetary one, his goal is to ensure humanity does not go extinct if there is a 6th major mass extinction. If you think about it, it’s funny how we call Earth ‘Mother Earth’ when more than 99% of the species that have ever lived on this planet have gone extinct (Raup and Sepkoski). To fight against this egotistical planet, enabling human life on Mars is a backup plan for humanity, where human consciousness and culture will be preserved. Adding on to that, we have made significant progress when it comes to space. Rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance actively explore Mars to this day, providing us with invaluable information leading to scientific breakthroughs (“Perseverance”). Reusable rockets from SpaceX have also reduced the cost per kilogram of launches into space, bringing humanity a step closer to their means of not going extinct.

Let’s take off those rose-tinted glasses and look at the reality. At first glance, Mars looks familiar. It has near identical conditions to Earth: polar ice caps, large valleys, liquid water underground, moons, and a day barely longer than Earth. Perfect! No.

Pioneers will have a stressful and intense time settling in Mars, and numerous challenges will be waiting for them. Solar power is only approximately 40 percent as effective on Earth due to the distance from the Sun (Williams). Wind and geothermal energy are not the best viable option as well. Although they are being studied, there is hardly any atmosphere on Mars and its interior is too cold. In fact, Mars's atmosphere is about 1 percent as dense as Earth’s (Williams). The average surface temperature on Mars is about -60 ℃ due to the thin air not capable of trapping heat. Nuclear technology may be the solution, but Mars doesn’t have easily accessible radioactive elements. As a result, nuclear fuels need to come from Earth along with the reactor.

Without an extensive magnetosphere, half of all the radiation coming from space reaches the ground. A person on the surface of the red planet will be exposed to 50 times the radiation compared to Earth (Hassler et al). 3 years on the surface of Mars exceeds the radiation dose limit imposed on NASA astronauts’ entire career, drastically increasing the chance for cancer. This forces human beings that are on Mars to shield their habitats with thick layers of regolith (Martian soil) or water ice (H₂O).

Martian soil contains perchlorate salts and being exposed to Mars’ UV radiation, these become extremely toxic and antimicrobial, destroying organic molecules and cells within minutes (Wadsworth and Cockell 1818). Growing food will be difficult as well since the soil is alkaline, lacking vital nitrogen compounds that plants need to grow. Astronauts will need aquaponic or aeroponic greenhouses protected from radiation. We can’t miss out the fact that Mars has 38 percent of Earth’s surface gravity as well, resulting in long-term health issues such as muscle loss, bone loss, and cardiovascular problems, which can be solved but it will require an adaptive lifestyle. Surprisingly, water and oxygen can be extracted.

Most importantly though, why build a city on Mars for a few elites on a dead planet when that money could be spent on Earth? Earth’s harshest environments are way more habitable than Mars. Allocating that budget toward protecting Earth in ways like nuclear fusion research or carbon capture technology seems more logical.

Watching Matt Damon survive on Mars was undoubtedly a great entertainment, but Mars should not be treated as the potential second Earth. Explorations can and have benefited human beings, but Earth is our only home and escaping it is a lie. Earth is not replicable and it is the only planet in the known universe that supports life. Priority should be given to Earth, not the red planet Mars.

Citations

Cavanagh, Colin. "How NASA Technology Built Nike Air Shoes." NASA Spinoff,

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, spinoff.nasa.gov.

Hassler, Donald M., et al. "Mars' Surface Radiation Environment Measured with the

Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity Rover." Science, vol. 343, no. 6169, 2014,

pp. 1244797.

"Lighting the Way for Quicker, Safer Healing." NASA Spinoff, 2005,

spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2005/hm_1.html.

Musk, Elon. "Making Life Multi-Planetary." New Space, vol. 6, no. 1, 2018,

pp. 2-11.

"Perseverance Rover Overview." NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/.