Humanity has thought about colonizing other planets since the dawn of astronomy. We’ve
written books, and made movies about it. But now it seems we’re closer than ever to make
this idea a reality.
Scientists have considered a lot of candidates for Earth 2.0, and they've found some!
What would it be like to live among Venus' clouds, or reside inside Mercury's underground
lava tubes? What planet is going to be the first one to have human colonies? And how
different will our lives become once we leave our home?
Get ready to hear about the plans that SpaceX and NASA have been working on and what’s
about to happen in the near future!
Elon Musk is convinced that we won’t survive as a species without colonizing other planets.
Exploration of extraterrestrial worlds will allow us to survive a possible apocalypse,
and also give us access to vast natural resources. And the starting point should be Mars.
The head of SpaceX believes that human beings will first set foot on Mars by 2029, and within
a few years after that, the first Martian colonies would start popping up around the
planet.
And while the preparation for the upcoming mission is in full swing, Mars remains a tricky
place. Take dust for example. Because of the intensity of winds there, dust would constantly
accumulate on solar panels, and this would put them out of operation. Tiny rocks that
dot the planet's surface could be even more damaging. In 2022, NASA showed images of the
Curiosity rover's tires being torn to shreds by Martian soil.
In fact, Mars is quite hostile. It’s very cold and the average temperature on the surface
is about -60°C [-80°F], a person there would quickly turn into an ice cube without some
kind of protection or spacesuit. The magnetic field on the planet is very weak, and the
atmosphere is a hundred times thinner than the Earth's, meaning no protection from cosmic
radiation. In addition, there’s nothing to breathe because the atmosphere of Mars
is a poisonous cocktail of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon gasses. But with the help
of modern technology, all of this can be fixed. Even gravity, which is almost three times
less than that on Earth, won’t bring much trouble. Although it will be necessary to
spend several hours a day on special exercise machines to stay in good shape.
Elon Musk is already preparing people to land on the red planet. But the flight will be
very long. The average distance between Earth and Mars is 225 million kilometers [140 million
miles]. If you were driving a car at the speed of 112 kilometers per hour [70 mph], it would
take you 223 years to get there! At its closest point, the distance between the planets is
about 62 million kilometers [38.5 million miles], and roughly 400 million kilometers
[250 million miles] at the farthest point.
The best time for spaceflights to Mars from Earth comes once every two years when the
two planets orbits are the closest. This is when the most advanced StarShip spacecraft
would launch from Earth. Each ship will be attached to a reusable carrier rocket with
42 Raptor engines. The total height of the rocket is 122 meters [400 feet] — the largest
ever built, even surpassing NASA's “Saturn V” [five] lunar rocket.
The booster rocket will accelerate the spacecraft to a speed of 8,650 kilometers per hour [5,375
mph], then detach and return to Earth. The ship will deliver people to Mars in about
seven months, and after filling the tanks with fuel made on Mars, the ship can be launched
back to Earth using its own engines. To supply rockets with fuel, a plant will be built on
Mars to produce methane and liquid oxygen from water ice and atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The spacecraft will carry 100 or even 200 people and 100 tons of cargo. The StarShip
flotilla will make about 1,000 voyages a year. According to Musk, at this rate, by 2050 a
city with millions of citizens and a developed industry could appear on the red planet.
The idea is to build a city under protective domes. The dwellings will be built by robots
before people arrive, and the rest could be printed by settlers using 3D printers.
NASA has already held a competition for the best Martian house in a special program called
3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. First place went to the Mars Ice House project, which
is a four-story igloo; an Eskimo yurt adapted to the conditions of Mars. It has many apartments
and public rooms, connected by a spiral staircase. The rooms would have curved walls to create
the illusion of more space.
But whatever shape the houses on Mars take, Elon Musk believes that the most important
thing is to make the settlement independent of supplies from Earth. Food would be grown
on hydroponic farms powered by solar energy. As for the Martian soil, it’s still unclear
whether Earth plants will take root there.
Recently, the lunar soil has been tested in this same regard. If there are settlers on
the Moon, they will need to at least partially provide themselves with food.
To find out if this would work, scientists from NASA and the University of Florida sowed
green crops in lunar regolith and volcanic ash and added a nutrient solution. Arabidopsis
thaliana [ur·a·buh·daap·suhs tha·lee·aa·nuh], a relative of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct59sQWpE-c]
cruciferous vegetables sprouted perfectly in this mixture. And this raised the Moon's
ranking as a site for colonization. Still, our satellite is too small to become a second
Earth.
Scientists are considering all the planets in the solar system that could become a full-fledged
replacement for our home, even Mercury.
It’s difficult to imagine that a new Earth would be a celestial body that rotates so
close to the Sun. Our star heats Mercury's surface to an average of 179°C [354°F],
and the daily maximum temperature gets even higher — up to 427°C [800 °F], and it
has no atmosphere to deflect solar radiation.
A solution to this was proposed back in 2011. The MESSENGER probe spotted a ton of Swiss
cheese-like features on the surface of Mercury, which could indicate underground lava tubes.
Colonies built inside such tubes would be naturally protected from solar radiation and
extreme temperatures.
But the lack of gravity is still an issue. The absence of gravity deprives human muscles
of their usual load, and they begin to atrophy quite fast. And our bones would suffer even
more. In prolonged weightlessness, for example, bone mass first decreases, then due to lack
of stress on bones, calcium starts to break down and releases into the bloodstream, increasing
the chance of bone fracture. Because the blood pressure in the human brain is much lower
than in our feet, if you take gravity away, it would stabilize equally all across the
body. This could lead to bleeding in blood vessels, impaired vision, and a stroke.
But in case we decide to relocate to Venus, we’ll avoid such troubles.
The planet’s gravity is almost equal to Earth's. Venus has a dense atmosphere that
could shelter colonists from radiation. In addition, there’s a huge amount of carbon
dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere of the planet, and oxygen can be extracted from it.
But there’s a problem, behind Venus’ thick veil lies a living hell. Large quantities
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere create an extreme greenhouse effect and raise the
temperature to about 475°С [900°F]. The atmospheric pressure on Venus is about the
same as the pressure at a depth of 900 meters [3,000 feet] underwater on Earth. So even
the most protected probes would only survive for a few hours there before being flattened
by the giant atmospheric press. The planet’s upper atmosphere is also flooded with poisonous
acid rain many times more corrosive than the most acidic rain on our planet. And the wind,
at a speed of 360 kilometers per hour [225 mph], blows away everything in its path.
So why do scientists still consider colonizing such a horrible planet? It turns out that
Venus hides a place like Earth! At an altitude of about 50 kilometers [30 miles], there’s
a region with a level of pressure and gravity almost like that found on Earth. And the temperature
there is about 30-50°C [85-120°F]. So building floating habitats behind the planet’s clouds
might be a good idea!
The NASA team has already begun developing the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept.
The initial mission envisioned an airship 129 meters [423 feet] long and 34 meters [112
feet] high, and protected from high temperatures with only a thin outer layer. One idea was
to use a nitrogen and oxygen mixture as a lifting gas for the airship, making its full
volume habitable. It would make the airship lighter than the Venusian atmosphere, allowing
it to float above the clouds. And because Venus is close to the Sun, there would be
abundant solar energy, meaning no problems with energy to power floating habitats and
cool the airship.
But at the edge of the solar system, is yet another great place for colonists.
Although this celestial body is Saturn's satellite, Titan is the size of a small planet, and is
the tenth largest object in the solar system, including the Sun. Its diameter is 1.06 times
that of Mercury, 1.48 times that of the Moon, and 0.40 times that of Earth.
The giant satellite resembles our planet more than any other celestial body in the solar
system. Titan has many lakes of liquid methane and ethane, which are strikingly similar to
Earth's bodies of water. They are constantly replenished by methane rains. The land is
covered with dunes of solid hydrocarbons that look similar to the sand dunes on Earth. These
hydrocarbons could be an excellent source of energy for the colonists. Even there, on
this distant world, humans would have shields against radiation - Saturn's magnetosphere
and Titan's nitrogen atmosphere are 50% thicker than Earth's. And water ice just beneath the
surface of the satellite can be used to produce oxygen.
And Titan is terribly cold. Temperatures average at about -180°C [-292°F]. But colonists
don't have to hide from the bitter cold under a spacesuit. Titan's dense atmosphere dissipates
the cold, which could allow people to walk around wearing warm clothes and respirators.
And they could make housing out of plastic using local raw materials. Scientists believe
that on Titan, we should build houses in the form of domes inflated with warm oxygen and
nitrogen.
Another unique feature about Titan is that the first people could fly like birds there.
Weak gravity combined with a dense atmosphere would allow you to perform stunts in the air
with wings attached to your back.
But do we actually need another celestial body to live on?
The idea of colonizing space isn’t really new as it was proposed back in 1975. But recently,
a team from Stanford University developed a project for a modern settlement among the
stars and planets. It’s made in the form of a torus with a diameter of 1.6 kilometers
[1 mile] and a thickness of 150 meters [492 feet]. Such a dwelling would be able to accommodate
10,000 people.
It would need to rotate continuously around the axis to create artificial gravity. There
would be an industrial area for processing ore from nearby planets and their satellites.
The leftover slag could be dumped outside as it would become a reliable shield against
all types of radiation.
In the living area, each colonist would be given a separate apartment, located on different
levels. All of them would be connected by spiral staircases where people would often
see each other upside down. The effect would occur as a result of the constant rotation
of the structure.
Scientists are already making plans to colonize Earth-like exoplanets near other stars. But
do you think we can ever get that far? Share your thoughts with a comment and give us a
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