Will people ever live on Mars? If the people in the 'The Mars Society' have their way, someday there really will be 'Martians', in the form of transplanted humans. They think that NASA should make Mars exploration the top priority of the space program and that we should try to settle the red planet. Currently they are running a Mars exploration simulation in an area of Utah that has a Mars-like environment. In these simulations crew members live in a round shaped habitat that's about 26 feet in diameter and has two decks. They hope these simulations will teach them things that will make future expeditions to Mars a success.
The atmosphere of Mars is 95 percent carbon dioxide, about 3 percent nitrogen, almost 2 percent argon with trace amounts of oxygen(not even 1 percent) while the Earths atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen , 21 percent oxygen and has trace amounts of other gases. Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level is about one hundred times greater then Mar's atmospheric pressure. This means Mar's atmosphere is very thin. It's also a very cold place. Can Mars be terraformed to be more like Earth? Some people think it's possible to terraform Mars by creating a greenhouse effect. Several ways to do this have been proposed. They are: 1. Huge mirrors orbiting Mars to heat it up, 2. Factories set up on Mars that would produce greenhouse gases and would be nuclear powered, 3. Crashing asteroids made of ammonia into the planet. Once the temperature of Mars is raised a few degrees by one or more of the above methods, this would cause the release of carbon dioxide that is stored in the south polar ice cap and other places on the planet which would create an even greater greenhouse effect and raise the temperature even more. In other words the release of greenhouse gases into Mar's atmosphere would cause the atmosphere to get thicker and would increase the atmospheric pressure.
One reason for going to Mars is to see if life exists there or has ever existed there. If life has ever existed there then that would greatly increase the odds that life exists other places in the universe and not just on Earth. One of the greatest obstacles of a manned mission to Mars is the cost, which would be billions of dollars.
For more information on Mars, Mars colonization and
terraforming check out the links below.
Mars Exploration Homepage
- Visit NASA's web site where you can find more information on
Mars and future missions to Mars.
The Mars Society- The people
in this organization thinks that NASA's top priority should be the exploration of Mars.
Mars Desert Research Station-
This Mars simulation is run by 'The Mars Society' and is located in Utah. So far there has been
fifteen simulations with each simulation lasting about two weeks.
Crew sixteen is currently(03/31/03) running
a simulation. Each crew keeps a journal of their daily activities.
Wired News- This article explains how some scientists think Mars could be terraformed.
The Terraforming Information Pages- This web site has links to more information on
terraforming Mars.
The Mars Direct Plan- In this article from Scientific American.com Robert Zubrin explains
how we can go to Mars now.
days since Spirit arrived at Mars.
days since Opportunity arrived at Mars.