Mars.
The Red Planet.
Our Neighbour and maybe our future home.
Space Rovers Opportunity and Spirit have already given us some clues about the fourth planet
from the sun, but do we need to go there and experience it for ourselves?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I am your host Rebecca Felgate
and today I am talking about my favourite topic, space, as I ask…should we go to Mars.
It is 2018 and as of yet, man hasn’t set foot on another planet.
In fact, our last manned mission to an extra-terrestrial body was in 1972 when Apollo 17 landed on
the moon.
For a while, it appeared that our space exploration attempts had slowed down, but as we entered
the new millennium, the human race began to set its sights on space once again with the
21nd century becoming the era for mars.
Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity laid a lot of ground work for the forthcoming Mars
2020 mission, but a lot of astrophysicists and explorers alike believe we will have a
human on mars by 2030, the latest.
One of the people at the forefront of the space exploration programme is Elon Musk,
who is one of the most vocal in his support for putting humans on Mars.
But, is it a good idea?
The main criticism for leaving Mars alone is the simple cost of it all.
Some say, economically, parts of the world are struggling, so why should we focus our
resources on exploring a faroff planet? Mars One estimates the cost of sending the first
four people to the red planet to be 6 billion Us dollars, which is around roughly the amount
it took to build the Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore.
Sure, Space travel is expensive, but the money goes to funding research and discovery, not
luxury, like plenty of projects on earth.
Elon Musk estimates the cost of space exploration to be higher at around 10 billion per person,
however that is nothing compared to how much money was pumped into the space race.
Congress famously spent 25.4 billion on the Apollo programme, around 150 billion considering
inflation today.
Despite the high cost, many consider the payback in terms of being a momentous historical moment
of human endeavour to be totally worth it.
Considering the nature of humans, Mars really is the next natural step.
From our beginnings in Ethiopia, humans have traversed every corner of the earth, with
our sense of curiosity constantly driving us and separating us from other species.
Our curiosity has set us apart and allowed us to become the intelligent beings we are
today.
The spirit of adventure isn’t the only reason humans feel a draw to Mars…it is more than
about sticking a flag into the dusty red earth.
Musk and the late Professor Hawking alike have stressed the need for humans to colonize
other planets in order to survive; as Musk put it, humans need to be a multi-planet series.
If we do not start making the preparations now, running out of space, over farming, famine,
disease and climate change on earth may kill off our species.
To this a lot of people say that Mars just isn’t a great choice, while it does have
water, the fundamental building block to life, it is much much colder than earth, its atmosphere
is much thinner than ours, which would mean we need to wear a space suit and, of course,
the air is not breathable.
We would also need to farm food somehow, which would be difficult.
Tackling these issues would be expensive but not impossible, and in a TED talk journalist
Stephen Petranek lays out ways we could tackle these issues, including an elaborate plan
to warm up the planet using solar sails focused on the south pole of the planet…but of course,
this begs the question, is this our place…to which many would retort, if it meant the survival
of the human race, then yeah.
Also, many argue that making Mars a common goal would unify the human race at a time
of great division.
If human achievement took us to Mars, how could we not be inspired by what the future
holds and by what productivity, rather than war can yield.
Mars might not be a great home, but it is a good start while we look for ways to be
able to travel to more hospitable planets faster.
But…adventure, colonisation and global unity aren’t the only good reason to go to Mars.
Another crucial reason would be that it would allow us the opportunity to understand more
about the evolution of our solar system.
We know that Mars once had flowing water, it used to be similar to planet earth in a
lot of respects.
By investigating what happened on mars, we may gain some insight into a possible future
for planet earth.
Moreover, as we have found evidence of bacteria on Mars before, a lot of scientists are convinced
that Mars holds answers in our quest to find other lifeforms.
While that is by no means a given, surely it is worth an investigation.
There are some legitimate safety concerns involved with manned Mars Missions; astronauts
choosing to go would be exposed to a lot of radiation and there are a lot of risks involving
potential cross planet contamination.
These are potential issues that scientists are working to tackle, but are by no means
unsolvable.
Before he died, Stephen Hawking Predicted that humans have just 100 years to save ourselves.
While some climate scientists argue that funds for space travel ought to be spent on fixing
the issues we have created on earth, to me at least, I don’t see why we can’t put
a primary focus on both.
Money is somewhat of a human construct, so lets say we need to pull all of our resources
into helping our planet, yes, but also into helping our species by finding out as much
about the universe and investigating new homes.
For this reason, I would definitively say, not that we simply should go to Mars…but
that we must.
So that is one big question answered for you there.
Do you think we should go to mars?
Let me know your reasons why, or your reasons why not in the comments section down below.
Also be sure to leave a thumbs up and stay subscribed for more big answers.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video, but for now, stay curious,
stay alert and never ever stop questioning.