IS THE COLONIZATION OF MARS BY EARTH FANTASY OR REALITY?

 

Elon Musk has displayed extreme intelligence, inventiveness and creativity in several fields, yet his proposed colonization of Mars seems more fantasy than practical reality.

We've raised a number of issues about a human colony on Mars he's not so far addressed and also questioned his basis for claiming Earth's inhabitants must go multi-planetary~his assumption that the Sun will "soon" encompass Earth wiping out all its inhabitants.

Our last article dealt with a number of factors that make placing a large colony of humans on Mars impractical, if not suicidal:  

Temperatures on Mars

1.  Mars average temperature is -81F with lows as cold as -220F, temperatures fatal to human life to be sure.  Elon Musk trivializes the problem, saying he'd have to "warm Mars up a bit," as if he could.

2.  Mars has no oxygen in its atmosphere.

3.  Mars' surface has no soil, no organic matter in which plants could grow, only the toxic regolith containing chloride compounds.

Travel to Mars is possible once every two years when the orbits of Earth and Mars are aligned so as to permit a Hohman transfer, that is, escaping the gravitational pull of one planet's orbit to enter the gravitational pull of the other planet's orbit.

With the two planets aligned perfectly, the trip to Mars from Earth would take 259 days or 8.515 months traveling at 24,600 MPH.

Scientists have closely monitored the effects of weightlessness on the human body during relatively short travels through space.  Muscle atrophy, interference with fluid distribution, embolism, lung and circulatory issues have been noted.

If you've ever broken your leg, you may remember when the cast was removed and your leg felt like jelly when you tried to put weight on it. 

That's muscle atrophy from a month or two of inaction.  

An 8.5 month trip in weightlessness' effect on the body's musculature is unknown, but don't count on the space travelers bounding onto Mars with total limb function.

A human colony requires huge, atmosphere-tight housing with water-processing capability, so many, many trips with huge payloads have to precede human colonists.

Landing on Mars with such enormously heavy payloads is problematic as Mars possesses only 1% of the atmosphere Earth enjoys.

The friction of Earth's atmosphere slows down entry considerably, making a "soft" landing possible.

Current technology requires a large craft landing on Mars to use considerable fuel through its jets to slow down the craft before landing.  More required fuel adds more weight to the craft.

A considerable amount of fuel will be required to take off from Mars.  

That fuel has to be either taken from Earth, adding to the vehicle's initial weight, or produced by a support crew traveling to Mars a couple years earlier.

Effects of Radiation in Space on Human Body

We haven't even mentioned radiation dangers, both during flight and once on Planet Mars.

Radiation shielding along with biomedical countermeasures are mandatory to protect the astronauts.

The most dangerous form of radiation is likely cosmic rays or GCRs, traveling at the speed of light.  They can knock apart the atoms in the astronaut's body or the metal walls of the spacecraft to shower the inside space with sub atomic particles.

The habitation of Mars requires man bring much of what sustains life from Earth. 

A temporary power outage in the colony's enclosed housing would not just interfere with the broadcast of the Cowboys game, but could prove fatal if not corrected in minutes.  

The effect of solar flares and radiation on Mars surface are not fully known.

Brownsville being on the Mars bandwagon poses no problem.  Even if its just a fantasy, SpaceX' presence could still be a positive with job creation and inventions useful to Earth's occupants.