What are the Prospects for Colonizing Mars?

Colonization of Mars means that humans inhabited Mars. Many studies and theories regard Mars as a viable colony. Its surface condition and the source of water make Mars the most suitable human planet in the solar system besides Earth. Because of Mars' environment and the possibility of being transformed into living things, Mars is considered by many scientists (including Stephen Hawking) to be an ideal planet for colonization.

Colonizing Mars

"In the long run, it is impossible for people to live on a planet. Although I don't know when it will one day in the future, there will be more people living on alien planets than on Earth."

The spaceship that sent six astronauts to Mars was a 15-foot-wide single compartment. This so-called "manned probe" was very small. The command compartment was like a can of tuna tied to a booster. A huge booster rocket will put it into orbit. Once in space, the capsule will be combined with a launch vehicle. Its size is like a small suburban house, divided into two upper and lower floors, stacked by two cylinders. The ground floor looks like a dormitory. There are halls, kitchens, and closet-sized bedrooms. Astronauts fasten sleeping bags to the walls to avoid flying around the world under weightlessness. On the second floor, there is a small area for scientific experiments and a cockpit. Astronauts spent six months in a narrow spacecraft to reach Mars, and it took another six months to return to Earth.

This is not a whimsical science fiction scene of an idle child. NASA has quietly started the "Mars Manned Rover" program. In 2004, President Bush announced that manned landing on Mars would be a new direction for the U.S. space program, and NASA engineers and scientists were fussed for a long time to reset plans and priorities. The spacecraft is still experimental, and contractors responsible for design receive only rough guidelines. Prior to the official plan, NASA engineers could only use the metaphor to refer to the spacecraft. They called it Winnebago (Winnipeg, North American Indian). "How many people can Win nebago carry?" Today, spacecraft have With the formal plan, their conversation became increasingly whimsical. Critical, outspoken, rigid and serious scientists suddenly dreamed of a "Star Wars" dream-exploring the distant Milky Way and colonizing on other planets.

For NASA, which is picking up from the Columbia crash, the Mars program offers an opportunity to restore its reputation. NASA Director Michael Griffin said: "In the long run, people cannot live on a planet. Although I do nt know when it will be in the future, one day, humans living on an alien planet will be better than the Earth. More on it. "

NASA needs new rockets that have never been manufactured, unpredictable robotics, and new technologies that engineers have come to expect.

At this stage, however, Vision is not so much a rigorous scientific plan as President Bush's whimsy. In order to realize the Mars manned exploration program, NASA needs new rockets that have never been manufactured, unpredictable robotic equipment, and new technologies ideal for engineers. The one-way round trip plan for the "Apollo" moon landing is 3 days. However, based on the shortest distance between Earth and Mars, the Mars plan also takes two and a half years, 6 months to fly to Mars, stay for 18 months, and Return to Earth in 6 months. While on Mars, astronauts will build a self-sufficient human community to make their own food, water, and energy. In addition, they will build permanent bases for future landing programs. In order to survive, they may need new technologies to make energy, and synthetic materials to be invented.

NASA veteran Robert Bishop said: "People don't understand how difficult it is. The Mars plan is more difficult than all of what we have done. If we succeed, this will be the greatest engineering achievement of all times."

Now, no one can assert that Vision will be the hallmark of a new era in humankind or the most stupid stupidity in history. No one is sure whether it will prove to the world that the United States can do extraordinary things or that it will waste resources in meaningless self-promotion. Regardless of the cost and the outcome, the Mars plan has become "the top priority of NASA."

For NASA, the Mars exploration program comes at the right time. For several years, NASA, who has experienced space crashes, has been trembling about the most common space missions. The seven astronauts on the Columbia, a space shuttle dying above Texas, were sent to space to complete one of the most mundane missions. An experiment involved detecting the mixture of urine and paint in space. NASA officials said: "The problem is that the public doesn't know what we do." NASA was originally a national hero (see, Americans are people who can reach the moon).

The Johnson Space Center itself is like a mistake of the times, falling behind the "Space Age" in our impression for decades. It has always been a symbol of the manned space program, where the control center is located, and where the astronauts live and train. Today, the Johnson Space Center looks like a futuristic outdated version. It is located on a vast land in southern Houston, and almost all buildings were built 40 years ago. Most of the staff are government contractors, wearing golf T-shirts, pooping belly, and plastic ID cards hanging around their necks. Almost everyone gets off work at 4:30 pm.

George Abbey, former head of the Johnson Space Center, said: "This is destined to do, even if it takes half a century and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, even if it is the most complicated and Challenging mission. Humans will definitely go to Mars anyway. "

NASA's existing rocket did not have enough fuel to send it all the way to Mars after sending a "manned probe" to the sky. How to land gently on Mars is also a problem.

Flying to Mars is not conceptually complicated. The problem is that it is so far from Earth to Mars that there is no system to prevent failure. Once there are any mistakes, it is impossible to rescue in time. Houston is also facing great pressure for remote repair. If a gear stops turning or the navigation system deviates from orbit, astronauts will be thrown on the planet 35 million miles away.

In addition to concerns about safety factors, NASA's first obstacle was how to get Winnebago (nicknamed Mars Rover) off the ground. NASA's existing rocket did not have enough fuel to send it all the way to Mars after sending a "manned probe" into space. So NASA made a plan to build a powerful launch rocket with reference to the most powerful "Saturn V" rocket in the 1970s. Even so, the rocket may not have enough power to send Win nebago to Mars. NASA experts are considering a "multi-stage mission" in which the spacecraft is divided into three or four parts, lifted off from different launch pads, and then joined in orbit. This complex mission required the astronauts to leave the command module and manually direct the various parts of the spacecraft into place. Even with a multi-stage launch, everything you need to fly to Mars will not be in one step. Therefore, NASA plans to build more than two Win nebago, one to transport astronauts, and one to carry "baggage" such as instruments and living supplies. As for the power of the spacecraft, engineers are trying a variety of methods: including nuclear installations, solar panels, and even allowing the spacecraft to have a magnetic field of several miles to travel in space with the help of the solar wind.

Getting Winnebago to land safely on Mars is also a problem. Barbie Buren, a young engineering professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, has been working on how interstellar spacecraft landed gently on a target planet instead of crashing into a crash. For him, helping the manned detector to brake is the coolest and most difficult subject. He said the most likely way was to use a reverse thrust rocket and a huge parachute to slow it down. In order to save fuel, Brunn recommends using only parachutes, but considering the weight of the spacecraft, "the parachute must be very, very large, and it may be too late to fully open before hitting the ground."

Winnebago enters Mars orbit, and the astronauts will be transferred to the small spacecraft used for landing, and they will head to the base of Mars. When astronauts arrive on Mars, they must be exhausted and weak, and the spacecraft must rely on an automatic landing system to land about 100 feet near the airborne materials without any damage. All packages and astronauts must land at a location of scientific interest. This requires an automatic landing system to perform missions to a precision of 100 feet several times in a strong wind and sandstorm climate.

After entering the zero-gravity environment, the human body begins to shrink and bone density will decrease. What is more dangerous is that the astronaut's risk of cancer is greatly increased.

In addition to rocket science and advancing physics, the journey to Mars has more severe challenges: how to keep astronauts alive in order to complete complex physical and mental tasks and keep them healthy and happy. This is a luxury talk. After entering the zero-gravity environment, the human body begins to shrink. Muscles, including the heart, do not need to work as hard as they do on Earth, and naturally shrink. Similarly, bone density will also decrease, bone density in space will drop by 1% every month, and a total of 20% in life on Earth. If you visit the space station, shrinkage is not a big problem,

Because the astronauts maintain zero gravity throughout their space journey. But after six months of travel to Mars, astronauts will face gravity again and need strong muscles to survive.

Johnson Space Center and dozens of doctors across the United States have been called to address these issues. Astronauts will always take the drug biphosphomates to prevent osteoporosis and the formation of kidney stones, both of which are chronic illnesses of space travel. NASA is building a new gravity machine that simulates a zero-gravity state, in which a skinny biologist can use a little finger to lift a 500-pound barbell. Astronauts also exercise with special equipment such as bicycles, which is especially important for strengthening the heart.

Even more dangerous is that astronauts have a significantly increased risk of cancer. The Earth s atmosphere protects humans from X-rays and solar proton radiation, but astronauts are protected in space only by the thin bulkheads of space ships. In order to reduce the radiation they receive, NASA uses as little steel as possible when building the spacecraft. These metals' neutrons will be released after being irradiated. If absorbed by the human body, cancerous tumors may form.

NASA may use materials for the shell of the ship, plus materials for stealth bombers. These synthetic materials have dense electrons and protons, and astronauts will be less affected by neutrons, but only slightly. David Robertson, responsible for space medical research at Vanderbilt University, said: "Even if we do our best protection, astronauts heading to Mars still have a significantly increased chance of developing cancer. When they return to Earth, we must watch them very carefully. . "

In addition, there are emotional issues that engineering can't overcome. Traveling to Mars is unprecedented. NASA psychologists have to study historical expeditions-sailing to the New World and dog sled trips to the Arctic Circle-to find out the success or failure of these expeditions. .

To ensure that astronauts on the Mars rover can endure difficult conditions, "we must be very, very careful in selecting astronauts," said NASA's chairman of the selection committee, Duane Rose.

Rose has a ridiculous number of qualified applicants: 20,000 people compete for 20 indicators each year, but he values not only intelligence or masculinity, he prefers "campers", he said: "Believe it or not, alone People camping in the forest are more adept at adapting to Mars. Astronauts we send to Mars may have two characteristics: they must travel around multiple countries to convince us that they can get along well with people of different cultural backgrounds, and they Must have extensive camping experience. "

Mars does not provide anything to sustain life, astronauts must bring all supplies and even equipment to extract water from urine.

If astronauts land on Mars safely, they will find that Mars is a desolate campsite that does not welcome visitors. Its surface is barren, and the boundless Gobi Desert covers the entire planet.

There is no water there, and the toxic air contains high concentrations of carbon dioxide, making it impossible for people to breathe. The average temperature is minus 81OC, which will freeze people to death. Evil storms are blowing from time to time on the planet, more powerful than Hurricane Katrina. It whipped the planet's ground and rolled up the dust covering the sky.

Mars does not provide anything to sustain life. This means that they must bring all supplies: temporary shelter, all terrain transportation, 18 months of food and supplies, scientific equipment, tools for drilling Mars to fetch water, and supplies to build a permanent base.

Astronauts may need a small nuclear installation to provide power. They also need super-corrosion-resistant coatings to protect everything they bring from the Martian sandstorm. They hope that the Mars base can be assembled automatically, and various institutions can turn origami-style equipment into complete tents within minutes. When the astronauts arrive, their accommodation is automatically prepared. John Connally, an engineer at the Johnson Space Center, said: "We can't do it yet, but we are going to figure out on the moon how much the base can be built automatically and how much work must be done manually."

NASA's space biologists are improving plants that can survive in zero gravity. Their function is to provide food and convert carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts into oxygen.

Pioneer Nagel Parkham, a skinny Englishman, has recently lived in a closed biosphere for three months trying to understand the problems Mars astronauts will encounter. Parkham and three other scientists used hydroponic plants to regenerate oxygen, and used chemicals to treat urine to regenerate water. The experiment was so successful that they didn't want to leave.

"Whether it's providing food or recycling oxygen, the most efficient plant is dwarf wheat," Parkham said.

Therefore, the trip to Mars is likely to bring wheat, and the remaining work of oxygen conversion will rely on chemical reactors, which electrolyze carbon dioxide and water to produce breathable oxygen.

Then there is the issue of water.

Astronauts consume three to four gallons of water a day in space, and it is simply unrealistic to carry too much water from Earth.

To solve this problem, NASA engineer DonHolder has been working hard at the Marshall Space Flight Center to try to find a way to extract water from urine. In his best system to date ------- most likely to be a model used on Mars ------- pee collection. In the cylindrical water tank on the spacecraft, the cylinder keeps rotating, a precise temperature heater burns the urine, and then collects the vapor through a sophisticated filtering system. The remaining liquid, DonHolder said, was "dirty, muddy black salt water." A reporter from Wired magazine tasted the water purified from his urine. He commented: "This is really not Evian mineral water, but it is more delicious than many ales I drink."

Russian space commanders have refused to complete assigned tasks due to "psychological trauma", and sexual problems in space have plagued astronauts.

The highest record for space dwell time is 379 days, which is less than half the time required by the Mars program. What is the psychological impact on astronauts of a long lonely stay in space? A glimpse of the leopard from the Russian space program. Russia sends astronauts to the Mir station for long-term stays. In 1997, a series of mechanical failures caused "space trauma" in Russian space commander Vasily Tsib liyev, who refused to complete the assigned task and yelled at the control center trying to help his doctor. To calm the poor peers, American astronauts used the computer to play the movie "Apollo 13" and translated the English conversation into Russian.

In order for Mars astronauts to complete their missions, the Psychology Team of the Johnson Space Center will monitor each astronaut, adjust his schedule according to personal circumstances, accurately measure the time he spends in team work, and experiment, exercise, rest and sleep alone time.

But no one knows whether this method can effectively prevent astronauts from going crazy.

The family's video is an important means of stabilizing the astronaut's psychology, but when flying close to Mars, the space shuttle has to delay 20 minutes to receive the video.

In October 2005, a report released by the National Academy of Sciences raised another difficulty: sexual problems in space. Two and a half years without sex at all is obviously too long. No one knows the composition of the aerospace team at the moment-five men and one woman? Three gay men? Are all singles? Are you all married? Will they attract each other? Research reports point out that any combination is dangerous. Without sex, it could be two years of restlessness. But if any interstellar sex or an attempt is made, the situation may get out of control. The Russian astronaut on the space station forcibly kissed a female Canadian astronaut, and she ran away in anger.

The control center remotely closed the Canadian female astronaut's room door, leaving the Russians out of the door and waiting for the two to calm down.

If astronauts did not kill each other on Mars because of jealousy, and spent 18 months safely, returning to Earth also requires them to fly back to Winneba go and then get out of orbit. At this point, they need a lot of rocket fuel, but the fuel is so heavy that it is impossible for astronauts to bring enough fuel to return to Mars. This means that NASA must refine, extract, and produce fuel on the Moon or Mars. Most of the plans currently proposed by space engineers are ridiculous. One proposal is that NASA refines the rocks on the moon, extracts materials to create solar panels, and transmits energy to Mars through microwaves. Another proposal is for NASA to send swarms of robotic rovers to search the entire moon to find helium-3 isotopes that are blown by the solar wind onto the moon and collect them in nuclear reactors, which can not only provide energy for Mars exploration, but also solve Earth energy shortage.

Another slightly humble plan is to use a nuclear-powered burner to break the moon and Mars rocks into the most basic elements, such as hydrogen and carbon, and then synthesize these elements into fuel. But the designer has to admit that this is just a fancy, no one has ever tried to make mining fuel for space, and a device that can withstand the harsh weather of Mars has yet to be invented.

The project is expected to take 50 years and cost $ 500 billion. Except for astronauts and engineers involved in the Mars program, few scientists think it is a good idea.

Experts say the Mars plan goes beyond building zero-gravity refineries or designing more powerful rockets. Sending humans to Mars requires a major leap forward in science and industry. The technical challenges are daunting, and leading scientists responsible for the Mars program are skeptical that they will.

Gentry Lee, a NASA system engineer and member of the Apollo Lunar Program, said: "What worries me most is that I don't think we are smart enough to launch the Mars program immediately."

In addition, this plan is expected to take 50 years and cost 500 billion US dollars. The long time and huge amount of money have also made NASA in an awkward position.

No matter what the Bush administration says, the truth is there: NASA has no financial resources to fund both space exploration and scientific research. To pay for the Mars manned program, NASA will virtually abandon all other science projects, no matter how far-reaching they are.

With the exception of astronauts and engineers involved in the Mars program, few scientists think the Mars manned program is a good idea. If you ask the opinions of scientists, most people will say "the Mars manned program has no real scientific basis". The U.S. Congressional Budget Office announced that NASA expects to spend $ 104 billion by 2018, but the Mars plan will exceed the budget, forcing NASA to cancel some promising scientific experiments. George Abbe, a former director of the Johnson Space Center, said the ultimate funding could be as much as $ 500 billion. NASA insiders said: "You are talking about a $ 500 billion project, but they only give a billion dollars a year. The Mars plan will either devour other scientific research funds or kill itself, which will happen sooner or later."

George Abbe believed that humans were capable of landing on Mars, but he proposed an easy way to raise funds: The Mars landing program became an international cooperation project like the International Space Station, and won the support of Europe, Japan, China, Brazil and Canada. Lee said, "My hope is that just as the Apollo moon landing program was a clear symbol of U.S. hegemony during the Cold War, the Mars program will also become a symbol of international cooperation in the new era."

Unfortunately, the Bush administration is not known for solidarity. In order to pay for the Mars program, the United States called off the shuttle, which made Europeans very dissatisfied. They spent millions of dollars on scientific experiments and depended heavily on the shuttle. The European Space Agency threatened that it would join Russia and Japan in developing its own moon landing spacecraft.

But for now, reaching Mars and returning safely are still long-term goals. If the Mars plan makes too many members of Congress feel meaningless, if the expenditure is completely out of control, if the spacecraft takes off and crashes, if Mars proves unsuitable for human habitation, all these efforts may become the most expensive and most expensive in human history. Stupid, most wasteful plan.

Colonists envision 600 years to transform Mars into Earth

Can we turn Mars into Earth? Can Mars' cold, thin air surface be transformed into a more suitable earth environment for human habitation? If so, what should we do?

The first answer is very clear: Of course, it is entirely possible for us to do it. From the data sent back by the spacecraft (including the aircraft currently being explored by Mars), we have found evidence to show that during the initial period of Mars' formation, its climate was mild and for some time there were signs of rivers flowing into the ocean. We on Earth know how to warm the planet by adding some greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The large amount of carbon dioxide used to make Mars' climate mild, and carbon dioxide may still be present on Mars. Water may also be present in frozen soil and polar ice caps. To restore Mars to its best climate, all we need is a gardener with a huge budget.

Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA, said that much of Mars' globalization needs to be done by Mars itself.

"What humans are doing is just warming the climate of Mars, and then sowing the seeds that gave birth to life," says Mackay. Perfluorocarbons are a potent greenhouse gas that can be used with Martian soil and air. The ingredients in the synthetic are obtained and then released into the atmosphere. This warms the entire planet, which then releases frozen carbon dioxide gas. Carbon dioxide raises the temperature, increasing atmospheric pressure to the point where liquid water can flow. At the same time, James Graham, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin, said that this way, human colonists can build a sustainable ecosystem on this red planet. Bacteria and lichens will first grow in Martian Antarctica, then mosses will emerge, and redwood trees will grow after a thousand years or more. After thousands of years, the growing forest will gradually cultivate to release oxygen.

Activists like Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Association, still dream of human cities on Mars. Zubrin is an engineer who believes that human civilization can only prosper and develop through infinite expansion. This type of research frontier is only feasible for scientists like Mackay. "We will live on Mars in the future, just as we live in Antarctica. There is no elementary school in Antarctica," he said, but he believes that what humans have learned on future Mars will help us to be more harmonious with the planet get along. However, the time to implement the plan is open to question. Mars currently has no direct interest in humans. Perhaps the troubles on Earth are enough to cause human headaches. However, as the most powerful leader on the planet, a discussion group designated by the White House in the United States recently suggested to try it on the moon or asteroid first, and pointed out that NASA lacked the budget for space travel. Finally, we can't estimate how much it will cost to turn a dead planet into a green planet like Earth.