Before You Populate Mars

Why We Shouldn’t Colonize Mars ​

    After the release of popular sci-fi film The Martian, the development of SpaceX with CEO Elon Musk, and new advances in aerospace science and technology, people are excited now more than ever about the prospect of venturing out past cislunar space and colonizing our red neighbor, Mars. Much of the population believe that NASA could be sending manned missions to Mars as early as 2024.

    The decision to send humans to Mars is, simply put, a bad one. The full round trip alone would take up to three years to complete, meaning we would have to somehow pack three years worth of food on a shuttle, as well as the tons of supplies needed for possible missions.

There’s a reason no life exists on Mars; not only does it have one of the weakest magnetospheres in the solar system, which plays a key role in protecting the planet against violent solar attacks from the sun, but it also has an air pressure so low, if an astronaut were to take off their helmet, the water would boil from their eyes and they would die within a minute. In addition, Mars also has an average surface temperature of 218°K, or -67° F. Mild hypothermia onsets in the human body after it drops past just 95°F. So, there’s being baked by UV radiation, suffocating under the severely low atmospheric pressure, and turning into a human popsicle. All of these things are potentially no danger if any astronaut on Mars were to stay inside their space suit, except that NASA and other noteworthy space programs haven’t even designed a space suit that could survive Mars.

Dharma Boskat
Contributor