[Music]
mars is
teasing us
humanity has been dreaming of landing on
the red planet for over a century and
with the advent of space flight and moon
landings it seems like it should be just
right around the corner and these
missions wouldn't just be for scientific
exploration which would be super awesome
because we would learn about the origins
of life and the formation of the solar
system they would serve to set up a
permanent human presence on mars a
colony on another world if only we could
figure out how to do it
before we launch on our first mission to
mars let's look at the pros and cons of
living on the red planet let's start
with the cons and frankly there are a
lot of cons
mars has
no air it has less than one percent of
the air pressure of the earth and what
air there is it's almost entirely carbon
dioxide
mars has no liquid water there is water
there but it's locked up as ice either
underneath the surface or in the polar
ice caps we need liquid water to survive
and this makes it just so much more
challenging next mars is constantly
suffering bombardment of solar radiation
and cosmic rays these are high energy
particles that can break apart cells and
even snip dna itself without a thick
atmosphere and without a magnetic field
mars is just exposed to this deadly
radiation and can increase cancer rates
for any martian colonists
mars is far from the earth hundreds of
millions of miles away it would be the
most distant mission we've ever sent and
it's also socially distant martian
colonists would be the furthest human
beings from earth in well the entire
solar system mars has less gravity than
the earth does we don't know fully how
to live and work and maintain our health
and fitness in low gravity environments
our hearts shrink our muscles degrade
our bones wither away we don't even know
if fetuses in the womb can grow straight
spines without earth's gravity to go
along with that mars has about half of
the sunlight that earth does and so
anything that requires solar energy like
solar power or photosynthesis is going
to be so much less efficient
mars occasionally experiences global
dust storms the dust on mars has been
blowing for billions of years and it's
not like dust or sand you might find in
a desert it's more like a fine talcum
powder that gets everywhere and
occasionally coats the entire planet
blocking out the sun for months on end
mars is also cold really really cold the
average temperature on mars is negative
81 degrees fahrenheit and it gets as low
as negative 220 degrees fahrenheit it's
just a cold place it's colder than the
coldest places on earth and if that
weren't enough
the soil on mars is full of toxic
chemicals that have to be filtered out
before you can use it as soil to grow
crops or to breathe in or to just exist
in these are all the cons what are some
of the pros of going to mars why would
we want to do that well
who doesn't like an adventure no i'm
serious i'm serious adventure and
exploration has been a part of humanity
it's in our dna it's something that
defines our species and going to mars is
simply the next step in a journey that
we've been on for tens if not hundreds
of thousands of years and hey mars can
offer another home if something
catastrophic were to happen to the earth
we'd have a plan b a planet bee if you
will and hey going along with that
mars has lots of empty space free for
the taking no one has a claim on mars no
one is already living there so it gives
us a chance to colonize to explore to
build new cities and new civilizations
you know without eliminating existing
ones and there's tons of science to be
done on mars not just the history of the
red planet but the origins of life mars
was once a potential home for life with
liquid water in a thick atmosphere but
something stopped understanding what
happened on mars can help us understand
the origins of life on the earth and
lastly my favorite reason to go to mars
lots and lots of red if you're a fan of
the color red well then this planet is
for you
that was very satisfying anyway if mars
is
so terrible why should we even bother
going there why don't we go to you know
the moon the moon is literally next door
it's only days away instead of months
away there are some advantages to mars
over the moon for one it's bigger so it
does have more gravity and it does have
water it's frozen but it still exists
and is accessible among all the worlds
in the solar system mars is the closest
thing we have to earth so to design our
mission to mars
let's go to the chalkboard
let's take a look at what a single
mission to mars would look like this is
our solar system well kind of it's not
exactly the scale but here in the center
we have our happy little sun and here we
have the orbit of the earth and the
orbit of mars if we want to get from
earth to mars we have to do some very
complicated orbital dynamics we need to
rely on on newton
isaac
okay maybe he'll show up later actually
figuring out and plotting these missions
is is incredibly difficult and that's
because the earth in its orbit is
constantly moving and so is mars at a
different distance in a different speed
so the most efficient way to get to mars
is to wait for conjunctions when are
planets align to sketch out a mission
here let's say we're on the earth
and we want to send a mission to mars
but when we're in conjunction by the
time the mission actually gets to mars
it's not going to be here it's going to
be way up here so mars
is going to be here
in its orbit so our trajectory from
earth to mars will look
like this
and with chemical rockets that will take
about 180 days in a weightless
environment just to get to mars now you
get on mars you land you poke around you
scare all the martians you do your
normal martian business there and you
want to get back to earth well guess
what you're not in conjunction anymore
you have to wait you have to wait for
the planets to align again so you have
to wait
on mars as it continues its year
before everything lines up again and
only then can you return to the earth
and guess what it's another long trip
when you launch from mars here
the earth is not going to be in
conjunction anymore you have to travel
another 180 days
to intersect
and safely
return to earth this is one of the most
energy efficient missions to mars and
the entire mission duration is two years
that's longer than any mission we have
ever had in space before and that's just
a single mission to build a colony of
permanent human presence we need tens
hundreds thousands of missions to the
red planet we're gonna have to bring a
lot of stuff i mean
oh boy think about all the things that
you surround yourself with in in your
daily life like air we're gonna have to
bring our own air into mars or figure
out how to make it there we're gonna
need communications gear so we can talk
to each other and call back to home
we're gonna need a mode of
transportation not just to get to mars
but to move around on mars to explore
we're gonna need storage we need like
grain silos is there grain on mars no
there's not grain on mars but we're
gonna need silos for something
eventually we need food we're gonna have
to either bring food from earth or
figure out how to grow it on martian
soil we're gonna have to figure out how
to extract resources from mars we need
to turn that martian regolith into walls
and ceilings and
toilets and stuff all sorts of stuff we
need utilities we need plumbing and
electrical conduits we need ethernet
cables and cell phone transmitters we
need fuel to power everything we need
water and yeah there's plenty of water
but it's frozen so you know we need to
heat it up first we need habitats we
need a place to live we need a room and
a dining room and maybe even a foyer but
we need all this stuff we've begun to
solve some of these challenges we've
started thinking about how to knock some
of these items off the list so that we
can build up a permanent human presence
and one very interesting idea relies on
something called the sabatier process
named after a french chemist
did i say the newton process
no i didn't isaac you're late you were
supposed to be on the other side thank
you well we're going to talk later okay
anyway the sabbatie process uh let me
show you it's a very simple chemical
reaction where
if you take
carbon dioxide which
mars has plenty of carbon dioxide that's
for sure
and you add some hydrogen which we can
take along with us uh is a relatively
easy to transport fuel
put it under a lot of pressure at some
high temperatures
you get
methane which is a fuel
and
as a bonus
some water
so one chemical reaction can transform
something that's already present on mars
into a source of fuel and water that's
not so bad this doesn't solve all the
problems but but it does start to chip
away at them but to dig into the
technology that we are developing today
to build a human colony on mars we're
going to need to talk to an expert my
name is eric berger i'm the senior space
center arts technica and author of a
recent book called liftoff about the
origins of spacex so what are the next
steps that we need in technology and
engineering and understanding to enable
a mars mission could we do it tomorrow
if we wanted to uh you could do it
tomorrow if you didn't mind if the
astronauts died um but if you wanted
them to live we could not do it tomorrow
when you think about it really the first
step toward going to mars is the
transportation system you need a way to
get four six eight or more people off of
the planet earth to survive a six month
journey to mars and then to get them
safely down on the surface of mars then
if you want to bring them back you've
got to figure out how to launch a rocket
from mars rendezvous with maybe a
spacecraft in mars orbit and then come
back to earth and then land at earth
we've never sent a really large
spacecraft to mars obviously the biggest
one is about a metric ton and we would
need to land something together 20 to 30
tons on surface of mars so
you really need to solve the
transportation system problem first and
we don't have that nasa doesn't have
that
no one really has that what about
landing on mars uh you know we've
developed all sorts of interesting
contraptions uh like there was the giant
bouncing ball there are these sky cranes
how do we land a like you said a
multi-ton vehicle on the surface of mars
what kind of technology do we need to
develop the key technology is propulsive
landing so we've never
really done that on earth when the space
shuttle came back to earth it was a
glider when our capsules come back to
earth they're under parachutes we launch
under propulsion but we don't really
land under propulsion mars has a much
thinner atmosphere obviously and so to
slow down such a large massive
spacecraft coming to mars you need some
kind of propulsive landing technology
and that's probably some kind of
thruster but it's very much sort of
theoretical and not actually real in
your estimation and this is just your
personal eric burger take how long until
the first human steps foot on mars so
i'm 48 years old paul and i love nothing
more than to see humans walk on mars in
my lifetime it's just a technological
leap with the existing rocket technology
we have it's a half trillion dollar
mission at least and it requires decades
sort of work to build up to it you know
realistically i think even spacex you
know which has talked about sending
humans to mars in the 2020s i don't see
that as viable but you know within 10 to
15 years maybe all right all right
let's fast forward a couple decades into
the future you're playing with your
grandkids you're you're watching the tv
you're watching that that this mars
mission play out what does it look like
step by step how many launches does it
take to get the required equipment into
orbit and on mars so just what does that
whole uh scenario look like so we went
to the moon with the saturn v rocket and
that rocket was just big and burly
enough to carry everything we needed to
set several tons down on the surface of
the moon and get two astronauts there
and back a single rocket ain't going to
do it for mars so even if you have sort
of the most powerful rocket that nasa is
building which would be the block 2
variant of the sls rocket you probably
need six to eight of those launches to
not just establish your your ship that's
going to go to mars but to fuel it
that's kind of like why when elon musk
or jeff bezos or relativity or these
other companies their plans sort of
incorporate reuse from the beginning
because you're going to have lots of
launches to do this and if you're
spending you know so much money
launching expendable rocket you just
can't afford to go anywhere let's fast
forward even a few more decades because
we do want to push the edge here and
look at mars colonization you know it's
certainly plausible that the first
mission to mars will be
you go when you come back what would it
take to set up a semi-permanent status
where there's a rotating cruise in and
out like the international space station
like our deep antarctic research
stations uh what kind of infrastructure
would it take to get there i actually
had an interesting conversation with
elon musk about this the question was
what would it take to build a
self-sustaining settlement on the
surface of mars it would take 1 million
metric tons
of stuff propellant to 3d printers to
stock for the 3d printers food
agriculture domes wherever you're going
to live all of it right to get to the
point where you could have all that on
mars and those people could then survive
without intervention from earth so one
million metric tons if you think about
that it takes a very large rocket and a
whole sort of sophisticated spacecraft
it's like the curiosity mission was what
a couple billion dollar mission to get
to mars and that rover was one ton
that's the challenge we're talking about
like you know sending one million
perseverances or curiosities worth of
math to mars it's an enormous challenge
and how many people would that would
that support i would think that would be
dozens or hundreds i mean it would be
like a growing thriving colony i mean
but there are basic questions right we
don't know if humans can procreate in
microgravity we don't know if they can
procreate in the one-third gravity on
mars how would humans evolve if they
were living all or most or all their
lives in mars these are great unanswered
questions so so you know i'd love to i'd
love to answer them one day is there a
future for humanity on mars i'm of
the group of people who think that the
destiny of humans is to get out there
and live among the stars it's very clear
that there are no planets in the solar
system or moons remotely close to earth
in terms of the suitability for humans
it is a garden of eden literally and
presumably there are planets like earth
or somewhat like earth around other
stars and we'll get there one day but to
do that we've got to take the first step
and i think if you look around the
sources to mars for all of its flaws and
there are many as you well know offers
the best back probably most importantly
it's fairly close six months is a long
time to get there but that's doable it's
not three years to move around jupiter
or something like that it's closer it's
far from perfect but you know you got to
start somewhere and and that's probably
the best place to start this was a
delight of a conversation i really
appreciate your time thank you paul
that's all short-term visits for
long-term habitation we have to face a
massive problem how do we turn this
into this
this is a process called terraforming
and it involves beefing up the martian
atmosphere but we need a lot of
atmosphere we need at least 10 times the
current martian atmosphere for water not
to boil at body temperature and we need
at least 20 times the pressure to make
it pleasant to walk around on the
surface without a suit so we need to
bulk up that atmosphere what do we got
the best things we have on mars are the
water and carbon dioxide locked up in
the soil and at the poles but
unfortunately there isn't enough even if
we liberated all of it and put it all
into the atmosphere it would only raise
the air pressure by like one or two or
maybe three times its current level
which isn't enough so we have to import
an atmosphere from somewhere else we
have to crash land comets from the outer
solar system onto the surface of mars
that kind of process is going to take
generations and we have to fight an even
bigger battle because mars doesn't have
a magnetic field the earth's magnetic
field protects
the atmosphere from the bombardment of
solar radiation so we have to introduce
an artificial magnetic field around mars
in order to keep that atmosphere locked
in for generations martian colonists are
going to have to live underground like
some sort of martian mole people oh and
you got the note from my manager right
that i'm not wearing the mole costume
okay got it that's long term right now
we're focused on stepping one foot on
mars and then 10 and then 100 slowly
building up to have a permanent human
presence there's no physics reason
preventing us from inhabiting mars it's
a matter of technology and engineering
and patience and most importantly money
but
there's no reason why we can't
eventually be on mars humanity will have
a presence on mars
well
i'm not going
you