Humans have this fascination for the other planets in the solar system, but more so with Mars. Despite the Earth being a beautiful place which we could never explore in an entire lifetime, we still want to go out to space and try to live in the other planets or try to find signs of intelligent life in other planets.
Now, Venus is too hot for us but Mars just might be right – though extensive studies have long concluded that humans would not survive in Mars unless a lot of factors are changed. But with the ambitious Mars One project planning to send its first human crew in a one-way trip to Mars by 2026, our perspective about the matter has changed.
It makes us want to question whether we could really survive the harsh conditions of our red neighbor; whether the humans of the Mars One project really stand a chance versus the terrible Martian environment.
The video created by AsapSCIENCE answers some of our basic questions about survival on Mars.
We have always imagined Mars as a dry planet with no water, yet there are ice caps on its north and south poles. Thus, if these could just be melted down, AsapSCIENCE believes there would be enough water for the people to survive in plus oxygen to breathe. After all, Mar’s thin atmosphere comprises mostly of carbon dioxide gas. However, humans need to first split that water molecules into oxygen so these can be used for breathing.
Finding food would also be a huge challenge because shipping food to Mars would be too costly. Mars One seems to have found an answer to that and the oxygen shortage: humans will grow their own food and these plants will provide them with oxygen. But remember that oxygen is also a fire hazard. Too much of that and their colony will explode.
Speaking of colony, the humans who will live on Mars won’t be able to survive living on the surface because of extreme radiation. They would have to live underground because Mars does not have a magnetic field that could deflect harmful cosmic waves from the sun [the Earth deflects 99.9% of these harmful rays!].
These are just some problems the early colonizers will face on Mars. Watch this video to learn more about the challenges they will face in Mars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYQMbnAqY30
