Should We Go To Mars?

by Mahi Uddin May 28, 2019 0 comments

An Alternate history: Should We Go To Mars?

Mars. The Red Planet. Our Neighbour and maybe our future home.

why should we go to mars NASA

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Space Rovers Opportunity and Spirit have already given us some hints about the fourth planet from the sun, but do we need to go there and experience it for ourselves?

Hello and welcome back to whatifhub.com, I am your host Mohiuddin and today I am talking about my favorite topic, space, as I ask… should we go to Mars. It is 2018 and as yet, man hasn’t set foot on another planet.

who should go to mars

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In fact, our last manned mission to an extra-terrestrial body was in 1972 when Apollo 17 landed on the moon.

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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 groundwork 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.

benefits of going to mars

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Some say, economically, parts of the world are struggling, so why should we focus our resources on exploring a far-off 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 endeavor to be totally worth it.

should we colonize Mars

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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 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.

why we won't go to mars

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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, colonization, 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 life forms. 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 let's 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.

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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 Mohiuddin, I’ll catch you in the next Article, but for now, stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.

* This article was originally published here