Mars, the Red Planet: since the most remote antiquity it has always been at the center of
dreams, expectations and myths of all kinds precisely because of the reddish color that
distinguishes it, already appreciable by observing the planet with unaided eye.
Due to this peculiarity, by the ancient Greeks it was associated with the god of war Ares.
But, without a doubt, the reason that more than others has made Mars famous is the hypothetical
presence of the Martians, protagonists of various science fiction books and movies: from "The War of
the Worlds" by Herbert George Wells to "Under the Moons of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs,
from “Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury to “Far from the Silent Planet” by Clive Staples Lewis,
to the recent “The Martian” by Andy Weir, just to name a few of the most famous novels.
But how was the myth of the Martians born?
Probably due to a translation error: during the great Mars opposition of 1877, the Italian
astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli believed he was observing a dense network of channels
(in Italian “canali”) on the Martian surface. To translate the Italian word "canali" into English,
he should have used the English "channel", which indicates a channel of natural origin.
Schiaparelli, however, made a mistake, and instead used the term "canal",
which indicates a canal of artificial origin. And this was like opening Pandora's box:
American astronomer Percival Lowell was among the first to hypothesize that these channels had been
built by an intelligent civilization, precisely the Martians, to transport water to the driest
areas of the planet. And the hope of finding some form of life on Mars for sure is among the reasons
for colonizing the red planet, even if to date we do not know absolutely for sure whether Mars hosts
or has hosted life forms. But why is Mars so interesting from this point of view? And are there
other reasons for colonizing it in the distant future? Let's try to find out in this video.
Another reason for colonizing Mars is that the red planet,
in some respects, is very similar to Earth. Mars is the fourth planet in order of distance
from the Sun and is located at an average distance of 1,5 astronomical units from our star,
around which it travels an elliptical orbit in just under two years:
this implies that the Martian seasons last almost double the terrestrial analogues.
Like the Earth, Mars is a rocky planet, and it takes just over a day (24 hours,
37 minutes and 23 s against the Earth's 23 hours 56 minutes) to make a rotation around its axis:
therefore a day on Mars, called "Sol", is almost as long as an earth day.
Furthermore, the inclination of its rotation axis with respect to the
vertical to the plane of the orbit is equal to 25.19 ° (for the Earth it is about 23 °).
Like the Earth, Mars also has two polar caps: unlike Earth caps, martian caps are formed by
dry ice, that is, ice originating from carbon dioxide; depending on the season
the size of the polar caps increases or decreases. Moreover, in 2015 the existence of liquid water on
its surface was also confirmed, by analyzing data from the NASA Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter probe:
this water periodically forms small streams. The presence of other salty liquid water was
also detected under the southern polar ice cap by radar surveys of the Mars
Express spacecraft of the European Space Agency conducted between 2012 and 2015.
Mars, however, differs from the Earth in several features: its diameter, 6804 km,
is about half that of the Earth, and its mass is also less, about a ninth of that of the Earth:
it follows that the Martian gravity is about 1 / 3 of the terrestrial one. In other words,
a person who weighs 60 chilograms on Earth would only weigh 20 chilograms on Mars! But be careful,
if you want to start a diet, it is not enough to go to Mars to weigh less, because what changes
is only the weight, because the force of gravity of the planet you are on changes, not your mass,
that is the quantity of matter you are made of! Being the mass of Mars smaller than that of the
Earth, Mars is not able to retain a dense atmosphere: it is believed
that a few billion years ago the Martian atmosphere was denser than the current one,
and that it then partially dispersed into space. The current thin atmosphere of Mars is made up of
just over 95% of carbon dioxide, and the remaining 5% of nitrogen, argon and traces of other gases.
The pressure on the surface exerted by the Martian atmosphere is just 1% of the Earth's analogue.
Due to the greater distance from the Sun, the solar radiation that reaches the surface of Mars
at noon is about half of that that reaches the Earth at the same time, so Mars is a dimly lit
world, also because the solar diameter seen from Mars is 19 arc minutes at aphelion (point in orbit
where Mars is furthest from the Sun) and 23 arc minutes at perihelion (when Mars is at the point
of its orbit closest to the Sun): these apparent dimensions respectively correspond to 60 and 70
percent of the solar angular diameter observed from the Earth at the corresponding points of
the orbit (the considerable variation in the size of the Sun seen from Mars is due to the greater
eccentricity of the Martian orbit compared to that of the Earth: e = 0.093 versus e = 0.016).
Average Martian temperatures are around -50 ° C. One last noteworthy aspect of the Martian sky
are the auroras. Mars does not have a magnetic field like that of the Earth,
but only local residues, much weaker, linked to magnetic rocks present in the subsoil,
mainly in the southern hemisphere. The Mars Express and Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft
have recorded thousands of events over the years, in which charged particles have been accelerated
in proximity of these local Martian magnetic fields in a similar way to what happens on Earth
during the polar auroras. However, the effects recorded by the Martian probes, most likely due
to the interaction between the solar wind and the local magnetic field lines, would have been
invisible to human eyes: all the signals received were in fact flashes of ultraviolet light.
Another reason for colonizing Mars is the technological fallout. The exploration of Mars,
and that of space in general, leads us to face new challenges and therefore leads to the creation of
technological and scientific innovation that has an impact on our everyday life.
All these things, and many more, are direct applications of technologies born for space.
Going to Mars we would need to develop new ways to defend ourselves from radiation, recycle water,
grow plants and reduce waste, generate electricity efficiently, all of which we badly need and that
the race to Mars can provide. Some of these technological innovations, called spin-offs, are
already all around us, without us realizing it: 1) Systems for filtering and recovering water
from humidity: deriving from the complex systems of moisture recycling on board the Space Station,
they are the basis of the filtering mechanism of the water present in some water bottles.
2) Image sensors for cameras and CMOS: developed in the 90s with the aim of miniaturizing the
cameras on board the interplanetary probes while still maintaining good image quality.
3) Air purifiers: used on board airplanes, they derive from a technology used on board the
International Space Station to reduce the amount of ethylene produced by lettuce grown on board
during an experiment: this gas, in excessive quantities, damages the plants themselves,
for example by accelerating flower wilt and fruit ripening.
4) Fabrics with special polymers to protect firefighters, military and civilians:
derived from research produced from the Apollo 1 accident on January 27,
1967: during a test on the launch pad, a spark in the command module ignited a fire that caused
the deaths of the three astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee.
5) Cardiac pumps: these are medical devices used to help the heart of patients waiting
for a heart transplant. In the first models the blood flow was not well optimized due to areas
where the blood stagnated, and this could be potentially lethal for the patient.
This problem was solved by studying mathematical models deriving from those used to study fluid
dynamics through the engines of space rockets. 6) Optimization of the GPS signal: in 1979,
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was looking for a system capable of determining with high precision
the position in space of the TOPEX satellite, an altimetric satellite
with the aim of measuring the height of the oceans. This research resulted in the
development of the GPS - Inferred Positioning System and Orbit Analysis Simulation Software
(abbreviated as GIPSY-OASIS), which was able to determine the position of the satellite
with an accuracy of 2 cm. 7) Memory foam materials:
these are those materials that resume their initial shape after undergoing pressure,
perhaps one of the most versatile technological fallout from space. The initial idea was developed
by NASA starting in 1966 to absorb shock and offer more comfort and protection for airplane seats.
Subsequently, its use has then spread a little everywhere and in the most varied fields.
For example, in the 1970s and 1980s it was used to stuff the Dallas Cowboys' helmets; currently
it is also used to protect bedridden patients from pressure sores, or to prevent too tight
shoes from damaging your feet, or, when riding, to pad the saddles and make them more comfortable
for both the horse and the rider. In Formula 1 and in rallies, padded foam protectors are used,
given their versatility and lightness, around neck and shoulders. Another use is in bicycle saddles.
8) Food Preservation: the freeze-dried foods that are easily found in supermarkets today are a
direct consequence of the technology developed by NASA in the 1960s to prepare meals for astronauts,
dealing with the narrow space of the lunar modules and, today aboard the International Space Station,
even with the need to store food for very long periods: weeks or even months, in the case
of long-duration missions. Infant formula for allergy sufferers falls into this category too.
9) Miniaturized electronic circuits: the microchips that made it possible to build the
personal computers were derived directly from the on-board computers used both in the lunar module
and in the command module of the Apollo missions. 10) Fuel cells: developed in view
of the lunar missions. 11) Cordless battery devices:
the first cordless drill / auger was used by the Apollo missions as an aid to take samples of lunar
rocks, on the other hand it was a bit difficult to find a 340,000 km extension, right? And now
we have them in the house, to make holes in the walls to hang the ugly paintings made by aunt.
These are just a few examples of technological fallout from space, and many more could be added.
Are there other reasons to colonize Mars? In addition to the possibility of escaping from
apocalyptic scenarios that might one day occur on Earth, and of recovering natural resources,
certainly an important motivation is the charm of the adventure itself,
as stated Konstantin Tsiolkowsky, one of the pioneers of astronautics:
"The man was born in the cradle, but cannot live forever in the cradle.”
Driven by his innate curiosity and the need to explore,
man has always tried to go a little further, to go beyond his limits to make new discoveries.
To conclude, perhaps the whole essence of space exploration, and therefore also
of the hypothetical colonization of Mars, is contained in the famous phrase uttered
by Captain Jean - Luc Picard at the opening of each episode of StarTrek: The Next Generation:
“Space, the last frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Its mission is to explore strange new worlds, in search of new forms of life and new civilizations,
to get where no one has gone before. "