If we want to establish long-term colonies on Mars, we need to learn how to live offline on it.

Ambitious expeditions are always aimed at maintaining self-sufficiency, and this intention becomes especially relevant when it comes to traveling to another planet. An active supply from Earth will be incredibly costly, therefore, for the successful colonization of the Red Planet, it is critically important for us to explore and use its own resources.

Mars resources

Mars may be dry and cold, but it has many valuable resources that astronauts can mine and use for the needs of their settlements. For example, they can generate oxygen and rocket fuel by extracting raw materials from the discharged, carbon dioxide-filled atmosphere of the planet. And the water necessary for life should be obtained from the soil under your feet.

“We know Martian soil contains water,” says Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the non-profit Mars Society. “Even at the equator, water makes up 5 percent of its weight; in the Arctic regions it is 60 percent. And we have already developed a technology that allows us to extract water from the soil and make it usable. "

This water, together with the large amount of carbon dioxide on Mars, will allow the growing of plants for food and the manufacture of some essential items, such as clothing.

Iron and silicon oxides are also very common on Mars, so settlers will be able to make iron, steel and glass. The availability of water and CO2 will allow the colonists to create some plastics.

“Human civilization on Earth was built on iron, steel and natural fibers until the 20th century,” says Zubrin. "We can do the same on Mars."

Complex products like computer chips will have to be imported from Earth over time, but most of these items will be light - which will significantly reduce the weight, and therefore the cost, of such cargo missions.

Energy for a new society

Life on Mars will require significant amounts of energy. While solar panels and radioisotope thermoelectric generators can cope with powering NASA's rovers on the planet's surface, human settlements will require different strategies.

NASA is currently investigating several options, including more efficient fuel cells and improved batteries. Such technologies will help support the first steps of colonists on the Red Planet, but a long-term society on Mars will require more powerful sources of energy. And, according to Robert Zubrin, such a source can be found underground.

Some Martian volcanoes last erupted only a few hundred million years ago, and orbiters discovered traces of groundwater that could exist on a cold planet only in the presence of an internal underground heat source.

All this suggests that under the surface of the planet you can find sources of geothermal energy, which, by the way, is the fourth most important source here on Earth, after fossil fuels, nuclear and hydroelectric energy. To gain access to it, the planet's crust must be drilled, which could also potentially give access to liquid water. Nuclear power can be used for this initial drilling.

Towards self-sufficiency

In the long term, the Martian colonies must find a way to support themselves financially, and independently pay for the goods imported to the planet. The settlers can mine and send gold and other precious metals to Earth, but transporting such heavy materials is extremely expensive. It is most likely that intellectual property will become the main export item of the Martian colonies.

Living conditions on Mars will be an extremely powerful stimulant for innovation, just as it was during the conquest of various fronts on Earth.

“Typically, you face severe labor shortages and incredibly difficult environmental conditions, and thus you are forced to invent new methods and technologies,” says Zubrin. "This is precisely the reason for the flourishing of the culture of invention in America in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries."

The most promising areas for innovation on Mars will be robotics and agriculture. And if native life forms are ever found on the planet, their genomes will be incredibly valuable, both scientifically and financially.

Next stop - Mars

Landing on Mars is the main goal of NASA's space flight program, and the space agency is not the only organization dreaming of setting foot on the Red Planet.

Dutch non-profit program Mars One intends to land four people on the planet in 2023 as the vanguard of a future permanent settlement. She estimates that the initial mission will cost about $ 6 billion, and the association plans to organize a global media event around the mission to pay for that cost.

Also billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, founder of private space company SpaceX, announced last year his intention to help organize a Martian colony for 80 thousand people.

In general, the idea of ​​colonizing the Red Planet is already ripe and is in the air. And sooner or later, it will definitely start.

Colonization of other worlds- an indispensable attribute of any space science fiction novel. This is quite understandable, because an exclusively altruistic craving for knowing the unknown will never justify the costs that space travel will require. Sooner or later, the question arises about the practical application of the results of all studies. And now the time has come when science can already oppose science fiction theories with real projects of colonizing another planet.

Elon Musk, his space expansion and colonization of Mars - The Night Air

Prerequisites for the colonization of Mars

Mars is the best choice for a number of reasons:

• Relative... At current ship speeds, the flight will take less than a year.
• Conditions similar to our planet: almost the same length of day, the axial tilt, due to which the seasons change, the land area is almost equal to that of the earth. Even the soil of Mars in many ways resembles the soil on Earth, which gives hope for the adaptation of the earth's flora to its conditions.
• The presence of the atmosphere... Despite its sparseness, it still serves as some protection from solar radiation.
• Water confirmed on Mars, which facilitates the life support of a potential colony.

However, there are also pitfalls. Firstly, these are the sharp temperature changes characteristic of the red planet, and in general this world is much colder than the Earth. We should not forget about the difference in gravity, which, if people are constantly there, can cause health problems, and in the future, in combination with an increased level of radiation, lead to various mutations. Low atmospheric pressure and the very composition of the atmosphere are also factors that complicate the process of populating Mars.

Colonizers of the red planet

Colonization of space, when will colonization of Mars begin?

Terraforming - what will it take?

Due to the above reasons, the organization of a colony on Mars will require the so-called terraforming, that is, the approximation of its conditions to those more suitable for earthlings.

First of all, this concerns the atmosphere, with the transformation of which the climate on the planet will change to a warmer side and water bodies will appear. Areas adjacent to the equator are most likely to be habitable. However, what looks so optimistic in theory does not promise to be easy to implement in practice. The fact is that some projects that promise to turn Mars into almost a beach paradise in the shortest possible time are utopias and threaten to disrupt the natural balance to the point of a global catastrophe.

Much more realistic is the idea to gradually, over many decades, form a new atmosphere, gradually supplying frozen nitrogen to Mars, which will be mined in the solar system.

Also being considered is the possibility of sending cometary material to the surface of the planet, consisting mainly of water, which will be released into the atmosphere in the form of steam. Ideas are being put forward and how to correct the orbit and tilt of the Mars axis to provide more stable climatic conditions.

But such large-scale works are still only theories, while the colonization project developed by the Dutch company Mars One is designed for a very foreseeable future, and in accordance with it, in 2023, the first colonists should go to the red planet.

First humans on Mars - p1 PlanetBase

What kind of difficulties are in store for potential colonists?

Problems can be roughly divided into 3 groups:

1. Technical;

The first generations of colonists will be especially strongly dependent on the reliability of the operation of all systems and installations, because equipment malfunction in a foreign world that is not well suited for life is not just a nuisance, but a serious threat to life. The existing project is based on the installation of solar panels as the main source of energy, but there must be additional sources of it, because in winter the batteries will be practically useless, and their efficiency is not too high.

2. Biological;

Life on Mars will be possible only at the station, which should provide the colonists with air, heat, food. And these systems will have to function for many years. If it is quite realistic to grow plants in the conditions of the built base, then it will be possible to diversify the diet with other products only through supplies from the Earth, but they will by no means be frequent, given the distance and cost of preparing the flight. And the self-sufficiency of the colony is a matter of the distant future.

In addition, many diseases and injuries that modern medicine has long learned to cope with, in the absence of hospitals, equipment and specialists, will again become a serious problem. In addition, it is not known what types of viruses and bacteria can be found on Mars, how much less gravity will seriously affect the health of earthlings ... There are much more questions than answers.

3. Psychological.

Perhaps these difficulties are the most unpredictable. No amount of experimentation and testing will prepare a person for such a test. Complete isolation from the familiar world, a closed and very limited space, the same circle of people every day for many years - breakdowns in such conditions will be inevitable. All the worked out approaches to the recruitment of the crew are irrelevant here, the team will have to be formed in such a way that in the future, within its framework, the colonists can create families. And this is an additional risk: when people are forced to constantly intersect with each other, questions of love, jealousy, personal antipathies and other aspects of relationships become especially acute.

Many scientists will surely be attracted by the opportunity to visit Mars, but the key word here is “visit”. And not stay there for the rest of your life. It is possible that among the volunteers there are many frivolous people who do not understand what they are doing, as well as adventurers.

ExoMars project / film about space

One-way ticket - Mars One seeks volunteers

• Despite the skepticism of many scientists, the authors of the Dutch project consider it quite feasible and have already announced the recruitment of volunteers who, after 8 years of preparation, will receive a one-way ticket. Both the selection procedure itself and the upcoming trainings will be held in reality show mode, which should become one of the main sources of funding for the project.
• In 2016, the ship with the first batch of cargoes necessary for future colonists should be launched. In the future, several more ships will go there, which will become the base for the colonists.
• It is difficult to say how promising this particular project is, but in any case, the development and colonization of Mars by a private company is hardly possible. To organize a full-fledged colony with an established infrastructure, and not just an island of Martian Robinsons, it will take long work and the combined efforts of specialists from all over the world, and then, perhaps, after several centuries, the red planet will become the second home for mankind.

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Today Mars is the most attractive target for potential colonization. It is worth starting with the fact that this is the closest planet to Earth (excluding Venus), the flight to which will take only 9 months. In addition, despite the fact that a person cannot be on the surface of Mars without protective equipment, the conditions of the planet are very similar to those on Earth.

First, the surface area of ​​Mars is almost equal to the land area on Earth. Secondly, the Martian day is similar to the terrestrial one and lasts 24 hours 39 minutes and 35 seconds. In addition, Mars and Earth have almost the same axis tilt to the plane of the ecliptic, as a result of which the seasons also change on Mars. The main factor in the possibility of potential colonization of the planet is the presence on Mars of the atmosphere, albeit not very dense, which guarantees some protection from radiation, and also facilitates the landing of the spacecraft. Also, as a result of recent studies, the presence of water on the planet was confirmed, which gives scientists reason to assert the likelihood of the occurrence and maintenance of life. In addition to this, it is worth noting the fact that the Martian soil is very similar in its parameters to the terrestrial one, so scientists are theoretically considering the possibility of growing plants on the planet's surface.

However, it is worth noting factors that can greatly complicate the colonization of the red planet. Firstly, it is the force of gravity, which is more than two and a half times less than that of the earth. Secondly, this is a low temperature (the maximum air warms up at the equator to +30 degrees Celsius, while in winter at the poles the temperature can drop to -123 degrees). Moreover, the planet is characterized by large annual temperature fluctuations. The planet's magnetic field is about 800 times weaker than on Earth. As for atmospheric pressure, it is too low on Mars for colonists to be on the surface without a special suit.

The atmosphere of Mars is 95 percent carbon dioxide, so in the early stages of terraforming the planet, vegetation is required with which to increase the oxygen content. By the way, the pressure of carbon dioxide may be sufficient to support the life of vegetation on the planet without additional terraforming.

Nevertheless, for the successful colonization of the planet, preliminary terraforming is indispensable. First, it is necessary to achieve atmospheric pressure on Mars, at which the existence of liquid water would become possible. Secondly, it is necessary to create an ozone layer that would protect the surface from radiation. Plus, you need to raise the temperature at the equator to at least +10 degrees.

With successful terrafing, the most favorable places for the establishment of colonies will be the lowlands in the equatorial zone. Among such places, scientists note, first of all, the Hellas depression (the highest pressure on the planet), as well as the Mariner valley (the highest minimum temperatures).

The plan for the colonization of Mars attracts humanity primarily because of the large reserves of various minerals on the planet: copper, iron, tungsten, rhenium, uranium and others. The very extraction of these elements can be much more fruitful than on Earth, since, for example, due to the absence of the biosphere and the high background of radiation, thermonuclear charges can be used on a large scale to open ore bodies.

Despite the fact that Mars is the most favorable planet for colonization in the solar system, many scientists declare that it is impossible to implement the plan for its colonization. One of the arguments is the small amount of elements needed to sustain life (hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon). Also, many experts question the practical value of terrafing the planet (since it is not possible to verify this experimentally under terrestrial conditions). In addition, many scientists are very frightened by the Martian radiation, as well as the Martian gravity, the harmful effects of which can lead to various mutations in the human body. Plus, scientists still find it difficult to answer about the possible consequences of a long flight (it is quite possible that a long stay of people in a confined space can cause serious psychological problems).

And the main tasks of colonizing Mars are to design, finance, build and manage the first permanent settlement on Mars. The initial goal for the Mars Homestead project is to identify the basic technologies required for a cost-effective Mars base built primarily using materials available on the planet.

Mars colonization project

Efforts will be focused on model projects that meet modern requirements. Their task is to select existing equipment that could be used on Mars, or to build prototypes of new equipment. These steps will lead the Mars Foundation to validate an experimental model of a Martian settlement on Earth, which will serve as a basis for research.

The creation of an autonomous colony on another planet is one of the most promising tasks for humanity. While the project requires a tremendous amount of effort, the goal of expanding humanity's influence in the solar system justifies the cost. There are several aspects to this problem.

What should be an autonomous colony? The main task is independence from the Earth. Once a colony is built, it provides a habitat for the settlers for a long time, preferably forever. The second challenge is a stable, manageable colony that can use local resources. Unlike a mission with the planned death of the settlers in an autonomous colony, there is a future for them and their children born on Mars.

Technological problems

Getting the colonists from Earth to Mars is a very difficult part of the plan. There are many threats inherent in space travel: solar and space radiation, meteorites, physical and mental illness, etc. Plans should address each of these issues.

There is a lot of uncertainty about the impact of the Martian environment. The equipment must be fully tested on Earth, but the effect of the Martian atmosphere cannot be fully investigated on Earth. The safest way is the unmanned construction of a colony with automated and controlled mechanisms.

Energy is the most critical resource. It is necessary for lighting and heating greenhouses, for metallurgy and the efficiency of mechanisms. The critical path is generating enough energy to produce spare parts for power plants and greenhouses. In other words: if power plants and greenhouses cannot be supported by the generated energy for an infinitely long time, the construction of an autonomous colony loses its meaning.

Organizational Problems

The cost of preparing this mission is enormous. The financial assessment only helps to get a general idea.

Within a small group of colonists, daily advice from all members may be sufficient to address governance issues, similar to the New England Town Hall tradition. In a growing community, some kind of representative democracy may become necessary.

As the number of members in the Martian population grows, so will the number of deaths. There will be a need for burials.

Medical Problems

Quarantine

Before landing on Mars, any crew must be isolated to ensure that their members do not suffer from infectious diseases. As a result, the Martian colony should be more or less free of pathogenic microbes, this will save medical costs. However, for babies born on Mars, an even more effective vaccination program will be needed to stimulate the development of newborns' immune systems.

Inbreeding

The population size should not be too small due to the risk of closely related interbreeding.

Increased exposure to radiation can increase the incidence of cancer. Colonists will need protection from radiation during their flight from Earth to Mars and to the surface of Mars due to the thin atmosphere and the lack of a planetary magnetosphere.

Medical service

Compared to Earth, the limited industrial productivity of an autonomous colony does not allow for the same level of medical care. It is impossible to produce highly sophisticated surgical equipment and a wide variety of medicines.

A semi-autonomous colony on Mars lives mainly on its own production of energy, food and air, using technology imported from Earth. All life systems are low-tech and can be maintained in working order using local resources.

Additional resources are regularly delivered from Earth:

- Sophisticated medical equipment
- Medicines for treatment
- Quality products
- High-tech equipment (e.g. computers)

As part of a strategy, this can be a smart move in a colonization program.

Transportation restrictions

Transporting cargo to Mars using today's launch vehicle technology is expensive. If mass transportation of goods becomes a reality, cheaper commercial launch systems must be developed. Since getting large loads to the surface is difficult, this could be done using new technology developed specifically for this colony. The restrictions on the transportation of goods, however, mean that the colony is approaching autonomous in its properties.

What if support from Earth stops?

However, if the delivery of goods stopped, the colony would be able to maintain itself for a long time due to low-tech equipment. Some settlers could then return to Earth if space travel continues.

An Earth-backed colony is the simplest of all colony types. As part of a colonization strategy, this can be used for further local exploration and the construction of more advanced colonies on Mars. It can be either a manned one-way flight or a colony with a regularly changing crew.

Requirements

To keep the settlers alive, the following basic conditions are necessary:

- Breathing air
- Food to provide energy for human metabolism
- Heated artificial habitat

There are other conditions necessary for a comfortable stay:

- Equipment for daily exercise in low Martian gravity
- Possibility of communication and privacy
- Psychological consultations
- Comparison with other concepts

Compared to an autonomous colony, this concept has the following advantages:

- Fewer new technologies need to be developed
- Less weight and volume of initial transportation
- Support can be tailored
- Possible small group of settlers

and the following inconveniences:

- Fixed costs
- The colonists have fewer opportunities for self-government. Controlled from Earth
- Energy and food aid

The colony regularly receives fuel and food from the Earth. Greenhouses are not necessary. Energy production is mainly needed to heat the home. This could be possible using nuclear power.

Energy support

The colony regularly receives fuel from Earth. Greenhouses or biotechnology are required for local food production. The amount of energy required is higher due to the fact that the energy efficiency ratio of any food production is much lower than 1. When using outdated methods (artificial greenhouse lighting), the ratio is approximately 0.001, which means transporting a huge amount of energy from Earth to Mars to feed the colonists. For more information, you can always contact.

The planet Mars, or as the Red Planet is often expressed otherwise, is of great interest to mankind. Scientists have been exploring Mars since 1960 using automatic stations.

And according to researchers, Mars has great prospects in terms of human development of the planet's red deserts. It should be noted here that Mars is a terrestrial planet, and as it turned out recently, the rarefied atmosphere of the planet well protects the surface of Mars from cosmic radiation. So the settlers don't have to look for serious shelters from the penetrating radiation.

One of the features of the similarity of Mars with our planet is the period of rotation, and the change of seasons, - although the climate on the planet is land on land, and much colder. However, as scientists believe, this was not always the case. Now on Mars, a rather severe climatic situation, the average temperature is? 50 ° C, fluctuations occur from? 153 ° C at the pole in winter, and up to over +20 ° C at noon at the equator.

As the researchers suggest, once there was a not so cold climate on Mars, and there was a time when the surface of Mars was covered by seas, oceans, lakes - that is, there was the presence of water in a liquid state. But it was a billion or more years ago.

Prospects for the colonization of Mars.

The construction of a permanent scientific research habitable base on the planet is considered as a promising goal of Mars exploration. The priority task of the base staff will be to study Mars itself, its satellites Phobos and Deimos. And as a future goal of the research base, the study of the asteroid belt, and the solar system.

Of course, this is the extraction of resources, because Mars can turn out to be a rich planet in terms of minerals. However, in this case, the delivery of goods is a serious problem, the high cost of transporting goods will not justify the costs. Unless, according to experts, the colonialists will discover rare earth metals - uranium, gold, diamonds, platinum.

And according to some scientists, the situation on Earth has come to the point when humanity needs to think about solving the demographic issue. And it is not only the threat of overpopulation, or the depletion of the Earth's resources that make us take a closer look at the issues of planetary colonization.

According to a number of scientists - speaking about this carefully - there is another need to create colonies on Mars.

The fact is that in the history of the Earth there have already been catastrophes of a global scale. For example, the fall of large space objects, so huge that a wave of destruction destroyed all life on Earth, rebuilding the planet's surface. When land and water bodies changed places.

As scientists-researchers believe, it is impossible to exclude the fact that an object of huge mass can fly from deep space and collide with the planet. And the colossal force of the impact of a space object will "shake" the Earth, so much that all living things will perish. But even in a more favorable scenario, human survival will not be easy.

Indeed, in this case, the entire human civilization is under the threat of existence. Even with a more favorable scenario, human survival will not be easy. The dust raised by the impact of a huge object, eruptions from volcanoes that have started working - all this dust and ash - cinder suspension, will close the planet from the Sun for many years. The temperature will drop to sub-zero for decades - that is, it will be the same as happened during the death of the dinosaurs.

So, as scientists believe, a person should think about what needs to be done so that the entire earthly culture does not perish. And there is only one option that scientists-researchers think in this direction, the creation of settlements on other planets of our system.

The most favorable, and more accessible in this respect, is Mars. Of course, the Moon is not forgotten, but only in terms of development - an inhabited research base, a kind of outpost of mankind, but nothing more. But with regard to Mars, boldly thinking scientists speak of great prospects.

How it is planned to create settlements on Mars.

Initially, it is planned to build a modular-type research village. Where specially made panels delivered from the Earth will serve as a building material. On Mars, living modules and modules of a research laboratory will be assembled from them.

At the first stage of the creation of research bases, areas in the equatorial area are considered. In the equator, temperatures are more moderate. What is more suitable for habitation, and conducting further geological exploration of Mars, and other research activities.

At the second stage of development - certainly with the success of the primary - we are talking about the creation of a colony on Mars. That is, the settlers will start building permanent, basic settlements. But permanent settlements are planned to be built from local materials. These will be capital buildings intended for colonists and future generations.

Some scientists, looking far ahead, say such things as terraforming, when it will be possible to artificially shape the landscape on Mars and change the atmosphere. After all, the current atmosphere of Mars is not suitable for human survival without special protective equipment. But with the help of terraforming, the atmosphere of Mars can be filled with breathable air. - However, this is a very distant prospect.

Difficulties of colonizing planets.

Currently, the development and creation of research bases at any planetary-satellite object of our system is not a very simple matter. Difficulties exist not only during the flight phase, when the colonists must be transported to Mars. Even after rebuilding the living and laboratory modules of the station, there is a problem that the modules will have a normal environment for life.

Many probably remember why the space station was de-orbited and flooded - the cosmonauts did not manage to get rid of the fungus that hit the station. Mold literally overpowered the station.

And even on Earth, having built a certain model of a closed base, problems began in it. In early 1990, in the desert near Arizona, a project conceived by billionaire Edward Bass was implemented. The Americans have created a huge complex in the desert,

The project lasted about two years, four men and four women, kept in touch with the outside world exclusively through a computer. Very quickly, the climate inside the group deteriorated, the team split into two opposing factions. By the way, even after 20 years, the participants in the experiment avoid meeting each other.

But it was not only the issues of cohabitation of a small group of people in a confined space that thwarted the Biosphere-2 project. A huge complex, designed for people to live in it autonomously, could not exist without outside support. But the whole world was closed inside - trees, shrubs, pigsties and chicken coops, goats and pastures for them. Fish ponds, an entire ecosystem isolated from the outside world.

However, the unexpected happened, microorganisms and insects began to multiply in huge quantities, and the process could not be regulated. And this began a few weeks after the start of the Biosphere-2 experiment. In this connection, the consumption of oxygen has sharply increased, and the destruction of crops.

As a result, the project participants began to suffocate from the lack of oxygen, and the experiment lost its purity - scientists had to supply people with oxygen.

But this can solve the problem on Earth, but how can this issue be solved on Mars? - there is no one there to pour fresh oxygen into the modules. I would like to believe that today's research scientists working in this direction have in their arsenal technologies how to solve such problems.

And before the first settlers of Mars, there will be no questions of survival, due to the violation of life support systems. A more careful selection of the first group of colonists, in terms of psychological compatibility, will reduce the number of conflict situations.