Will Mars become the second Earth for humans one day?!

There is no doubt that the novel "The Last and the First Men" by British author Olaf Stapeldion, published in 1930, was an unprecedented work in the history of science fiction, in which it described the future of humanity from the present time onward over two billion years, talking about the emergence of 28 different types of human beings, the first of which is us, He predicted the sciences of genetic engineering, but what drew the most attention, no doubt, was his saying that in the future, humans will tend to reclaim other planets.

After that, the fictional works that talk about the reclamation of planets followed, but Carl Sagan, the famous American astronomer, had moved the matter into the scientific debate in the sixties when he said that humans can reclaim Venus (1), presenting some possible mechanisms for this, Venus is Earth's twin, and it is relatively the closest planet to it, and it is natural that it will be the first candidate.

But with the results of the first space missions coming to him, Venus became the last candidate. We were sure that it was nothing but a raging hell, with the highest temperatures in the solar system, so that if someone was destined to stand on Venus, our problem would be: What killed him first, Toxic gas, atmospheric pressure, or heat?

Why do we even care?

Here all eyes are on Mars, a pleasant planet if we decide to use literary language;

About half the size of the Earth, and its day is approximately 24 hours, far away, but the trip to it is cut in only six months (candidate for decrease), the temperature on its surface - in mid-latitudes - is about minus 63 degrees Celsius, a harsh climate but humans can bypass it, already up to The weather is this severe in some polar regions here on Earth.

In addition, scientists expect that Mars was, perhaps, a green planet someday, several billion years ago. What is certain is that the cameras of our vehicles have already monitored the existence of ancient rivers in which water ran before time immemorial, we do not know why they stopped flowing, which is the scope of my research thriving today aims to understand the extreme climate change that led to this, but we know that if it happened there one day, it could somehow take place in the future.

Here, an important question arises: Why should we care about reclaiming another planet?

It is a valid and important question that some are already asking in the corridors of governments and parliaments in developed countries. We are talking here about trillions of dollars if such a plan has already begun, but there is a simple answer to this question, which is that we will leave the earth one day inevitably, simply because it does not exist in this universe something eternal.

Let's start with the nearest possibilities in time, for example, Stephen Hawking had predicted (2) years before his death that human life on Earth is threatened with extinction within several hundred years and a maximum of a thousand years, and this possibility is based on several reasons, including climate change, which reshapes the environment The floor already.

Day after day, the rates of heat and cold waves, tropical cyclones, sand and dust storms are rising, desertification rates are increasing at astronomical rates, and drought is hitting the sides of the planet, causing people to leave their countries and migrate to other places. Sixth, during which species disappear at rates tens of thousands of times higher than the natural state.

On the other hand, humans themselves, it seems, are beings that are not stable enough to accept technological development. Consider, for example, the current Ukrainian war. From the first moment, the Russians threatened - and still do - using nuclear weapons, which is more dangerous than you think. You might say that a nuclear war will kill Millions, you might think that it could affect agriculture and industry and cause an economic downturn, but the reality is that scientists in this field are unanimous in the fact that the possibility that a nuclear war will cause massive climate change that could wipe out all of humanity already exists!

The enlargement of the sun at the end of its life portends the end of life on Earth

We have not yet talked about that the reclamation of other planets may be, someday in the distant future, one of the important solutions to the increasing shortage of resources on our planet day by day, for one reason that - simply - we are consuming our resources at record rates (more in a previous report by the author entitled Why should we To leave someday from planet Earth?).

All of the above is not inevitable, we can one day fix it, but there are things that no one can fix, the moon, for example, moves away from the earth day after day and will leave its orbit one day within a billion to a billion and a half years, the sun itself will turn at some point into a red giant It will make life on Earth, in its current form, impossible, the Earth itself will be hit by a kind of "geological lock" one day, all these possibilities are very remote in time, but they are inevitably coming.

Let's start converting

Well, then the goal is to be able to carry a citizen of this planet into a spaceship, and then go on a trip to Mars and get him out of the spacecraft door to get some fun air and go on to do the tasks he came to do, here the current atmospheric pressure of Mars is our biggest problem, It is equal to less than 1% of the Earth's atmospheric pressure.

Let's define atmospheric pressure as the weight of the column of air that is now standing above your head and up to the highest point in the atmosphere, it's the reason why you're walking on Earth without wearing a pressure-adjusted spacesuit, simply because if you were now on Mars, the air would suddenly be pulled out of your lungs Because of the huge pressure difference, besides that your body fluids will reach a boiling point, because the boiling point decreases with pressure, and you will die within 10-15 seconds.

Even on the ground, we need to equalize the atmospheric pressure in airplanes at a height of only several thousand meters!

Scientists expect that humans will one day be able to turn Mars into a planet similar to Earth, but after a very long time, the current technological capabilities are incapable of such a mission.

To raise the atmospheric pressure of a planet, you must fill it with gas, here comes the role of carbon dioxide, some studies (4) have found that to condense the atmosphere of Mars we must release carbon dioxide from the snow on the poles, and from the soil as well.

Increased levels of carbon dioxide will also help the planet's temperature because it is a greenhouse gas (in fact it is warming our planet as we speak).

There have been suggestions to invent a technology to direct a group of comets that strike Mars and excite its gases. It is what happened with Earth in its early days and is - along with other mechanisms - what made its life-friendly atmosphere.

On the other hand, another team led by Elon Musk (5), a world-renowned businessman, suggested that we hit Mars with thousands of nuclear bombs from now on and not wait, that will raise the dust we want enough, and let us wait several hundred years until the nuclear effect wears off and the planet is in order .

Nuke Mars!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 16, 2019

But the problem is that a study (6) published in 2018 in the prestigious journal “Nature Astronomy” concluded that Mars does not contain enough carbon dioxide today to achieve the desired, only that nuclear or meteor strike would achieve 7% of the temperature and intensity Atmosphere needed for life, the researchers wrote: "We conclude that reconfiguring Mars into Earth is not possible using current technology."

The problems facing efforts to convert Mars to another Earth do not stop there. For example, there is a problem related to the planet’s gravity, which is equal to 38% of the Earth’s gravity. If humans lived in such low gravity for long periods, health problems such as muscle loss and bone demineralization would appear. Plus, Mars has no magnetosphere, which can cause medical and technological problems, because a single burst of solar wind can disrupt everything from electricity to communications.

And if that's not enough, there are more difficulties.

Scientists today know that the planet Mars is not fixed in its inclination due to the attraction of the nearby Jupiter, and the two moons of Mars are very small in relation to the planet, Deimos (with a diameter of only 15 km) and Phobos (with a diameter of 25 km), some researchers believe that the planet needed a relatively large moon in order to It maintains its balance.

The Earth is also affected by several forces regularly while revolving around the sun. Besides the gravity of the sun, there is also the attraction of other planets, especially giant ones such as Jupiter. These gravitational forces directly affect the Earth’s orbit and the tilt of its axis, which now stands at 23.4 degrees.

But the moon - with a relatively large mass equal to one-fifth of the Earth - maintains to a greater extent the tilt of the Earth. It is like two ice dancers, when each of them holds each other's hands and keeps each other balanced. Mars does not have that advantage, so its tilt often changes.

The dangerous thing is that a slight change in the tendency hits the climate completely, as the sunlight is concentrated on the surface of the planet in areas without others with each change, and thus the values ​​of temperature and coldness and the climate system change drastically, the climate may be very humid and then become very dry, or it may The place turns from a desert to a rainforest.

On the other hand, the planet is geologically locked, and it does not contain tectonic plates (7), which is the permanent movement of pieces of the earth’s crust towards each other. The continent of Africa, slipping off each other and making volcanoes, and all of that was recycling water and carbon dioxide, and with them the elements necessary for life, over billions of years on the planet.

Do we find in the solar system planets that contain moving tectonic plates?

Unfortunately not, Mars is thought to have been that way once, several billion years ago, which actually helped it conserve water and possibly plants and life, but it has stopped.

Also, we have only limited techniques to reveal to us how common plate tectonics is in planets around other stars.

Moon Palace

All of the above does not stop the idea that we can turn Mars into another Earth one day, but it only postpones the idea for a longer period of time than some might imagine, perhaps after several hundred or thousands of years that happens, but certainly not now and not during this century, But what can we do during this century?

Several years ago, Elon Musk said that by 2050 Mars would have a colony of one million people (8), and we find that a very optimistic forecast in that time period, but Musk, as an entrepreneur, speaks the language of the technical development to which he was a major contributor, The Musk rockets, which are now returning safely, reduce the cost of space payloads to less than a million dollars, after it was several hundreds of millions, if we extend the lines on their straight lines to reach a stage not very long during which a station will be placed on Mars.

There are already attempts to do this now, for example, in 2014, a research team of the Chinese government (9) had started a new project aimed at creating lunar conditions inside a closed unit on Earth, and then designing this unit to accept the existence of human life for a long time without the need for External supplies, the project was called "Moon Palace 1" (Yuegong-1), and in 2017, the team completed construction of the Moon Palace, which consists of three sectors, the first and second contained facilities for planting plants, and the third sector was the place where humans would live.

The idea of ​​the Moon Palace is to create a sustainable biosphere, meaning that you do not need any external support from the Earth for as long as possible because that is very expensive.

Therefore, the Moon Palace was designed so that its inhabitants obtain oxygen and food from the plants grown inside it, and the water is also recycled to purify and use it again, and urine and feces were used as fertilizer. In addition, this team managed to grow a type of worms that feed on mushrooms that grow on plant waste And use it later in food.

In 2014, four volunteers entered the Moon Palace and actually stayed inside for 110 days without any need to deal with the outside. After that, another group entered the palace for 65 days. In the third experiment, another group spent 200 days inside the Moon Palace.

In all, the subjects spent 370 days inside the Moon Palace without any need for external supplies, and the team hopes to extend that period as much as possible in the future.

The matter of sustainability is very important, as transporting one brick to Mars can cost more than two million dollars, so scientists assume that the solution will be to create an environment that serves itself as much as possible, and a team from the British University of Manchester has suggested that future Mars homes, and the Moon as well , using sweat, blood and human tears!

Mars houses

According to their study, which was published in the journal "Materials Today Bio" (10), some chemical compounds produced as outputs from the human body can stick to the soil of the Moon or Mars and make a solid type of concrete.

In the new study, the team indicated that one of the blood plasma proteins (albumin) can work to produce a concrete-like substance called "astrocrete", with a compressive strength of up to 25 MPa, which is almost the same strength as that of ordinary concrete.

Layout for Marsha's House of Mars (NASA)

Compressive resistance means the ability of the material to resist the forces compressively compressive on it axially, and when reaching the limits of the compressive resistance the material is destroyed, and therefore it is an essential property to measure the effectiveness of concrete in construction.

The study also found that incorporating urea, a biological waste produced by the body and excreted through urine, sweat and tears, can increase the compressive strength of up to 40 MPa, much stronger than regular concrete.

According to the study, more than half a ton of highly resistant astrocrete can be produced during a two-year mission on Mars by a crew of six astronauts, and this enables each crew member to produce enough astrocrete to support the addition of a new crew member, and thus The number of members increases little by little until the formation of an initial human colony.

Ai Space Factory recently won a competition for the US Space and Aviation Agency and won a $500,000 prize. The company's engineers used massive 3D printers to build large cylindrical homes made of composite basalt and plant fibres, called "Marsha", or Martian homes. (11).

At first glance, it seems simple, but Mars is of a completely different nature from Earth, as we mentioned, almost no oxygen, with very low atmospheric pressure and harsh cold, besides, the radiation levels are thousands of times greater than those that the Earth is exposed to.

At that point the challenges appear, and therefore all previous suggestions were that the homes of Mars should be underground in order to achieve protection from all of this, but the engineers of "Marsha" indicated that the psychological aspect of dwelling on Mars is essential to a continuous and permanent life, and life under the earth does not support that.

Therefore, basalt appeared as a component of Martian homes in the company’s proposal, as a double wall of it is able to protect against radiation, but there is an additional importance for basalt, which is that it is abundant on the surface of Mars due to volcanoes that erupted billions of years ago, and plant fibers can be obtained from plants grown on Mars. Mars.

That means, according to Marsha's engineers, that all it takes is to send the massive 3D printers to Mars and design a sustainable mechanism to get to the basalt and grow the plants, and then build a huge number of homes there without having to transport them to Mars from Earth, the first human cities. that may be ready to receive them someday.

The idea that the house should be cylindrical aroused the attention of NASA researchers from the first moment, as the house with this structure is very effective in maintaining pressure and thus giving an indoor climate similar to the Earth, and it also provides the greatest amount of potential within the least space, reducing the amount of building materials.

On the other hand, the company had worked on adding multiple glass windows to the house structure, which rises to three full floors that allow many ordinary household tasks very effectively.

I-Space Factory's 3D printers succeeded - without human intervention - in building miniature models of these homes. In implementing the idea using larger scales.

Just a miracle

Well, if we've managed to pique your interest, here's more.

Another team of researchers hypothesizes that we should start now by sending life to Mars, but we will send modified images of life, for example, it has already been possible in the laboratory to mutate Escherichia coli (12), a bacterium that lives naturally in the intestines of healthy humans and animals, genetically to tolerate living in an environment Mars is exposed to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation, some are looking to grow methane-producing bacteria inside the planet, and a third team wants to mutate blue algae and then throw huge amounts of it there to produce oxygen on Mars, the same algae that breathed oxygen into Earth's climate and became Capable of receiving images of contemporary life.

Of course, there are enormous challenges facing these attempts, not least for example dust sprites, which are crushing Martian winds that arise in the spring and summer that can cause problems for any Martian colony, but one day - perhaps within two decades - humans will reach Mars, and from that point they think What could happen in the distant future.

All of the above must make us feel grateful for the nature of our warm planet, and prompt us to reflect on the complex conditions that came together to ensure the emergence and flourishing of life on it, in a way that makes it day after day more unique than we thought, to reach a stage where you now sit on your favorite sofa and read this report Without the need to wear complex equipment to breathe, bear pressure naturally, eat what is available from the earth's bounties and its friendly animals, sleep in peace and not be terrified by what may happen tomorrow, see the moon in a nice evening and love it, treat all of the above as postulates, but Just a miracle, in every sense of the word.

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