Andy Weir's The Martian

1669 Words4 Pages

The Martian tells the fascinating tale of Mark Watney. He’s a NASA astronaut that is given the task of exploring Mars, but when disaster strikes, Mark is left abandoned and alone on Mars’ rocky surfaces. Although the story behind the novel is fiction, author Andy Weir has captivated audiences and had them begging for more. After the phenomenon hit theaters, people were asking NASA, when is America going to Mars? And NASA’s answer was simple, they plan for a manned mission to Mars in the 2020’s. Not just Americans, but everyone around the world is anticipating a mission to the Red Planet, but how educated is the public on the ethics behind Mars missions? A private organization out of the Netherlands called Mars One intends to send astronauts …show more content…

Life on Earth is possible due to the conditions the planet provides, and moving to another planet with different living conditions could be dangerous for humanity. The magnetic field on Earth prevents harmful radiation from penetrating the human body. Also, our atmosphere contains oxygen that people need to breathe. Mars has no magnetic field and it’s atmosphere is thin, which would eventually prove dangerous for humans. Richard Gray says, “radiation will still be a problem as the planet's atmosphere does not offer the same kind of protection as on Earth.” Scientists are not able to experiment how the human body would react to the transition to the much different atmosphere of Mars, and with radiation already posing a threat to this planet, it would be a much bigger threat on another, less equipped planet. If humans were to colonize Mars, eventually they would need to reproduce. It is a natural process of life, but how well would babies and growing children do in the harsh Martian environment? Others in favor may argue that over time, humans would adapt to Mars, but what if the children couldn’t survive in the first place? Currently, there is no knowledge human conception and human fetus development will function on …show more content…

Although some might argue that the countries of the world would have more than enough money to fund trips to Mars, sending continual trips would be an overwhelming cost due to maintenance, repairs, and backups. The astronauts would be living on Mars and would maintain their living quarters, but if their technology breaks beyond use, Earth would need to send maintenance, spending lots of money doing it. As Charles Krauthammer said in Space Exploration, “when you send a $1 billion probe loaded with experiments and hardware and it fails, you risk losing your entire congressional backing -- and your entire program” (29). He was referring to the Mars Observer, which ultimately failed in 1993, costing NASA billions of dollars. After the failure, NASA’s plans to get to Mars were delayed. What if the same thing happened to any of the spacecrafts on route to Mars? Krauthammer was not the only one to note the extreme costs of Mars programs. Sydney Do, Andrew Owens, Koki Ho, Samuel Schreiner, and Olivier de Weck, students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researched the ethics and cost measures behind the Mars One program. Although the program is a private organization, the cost could still affect the budget for NASA. If the Mars One program reached any roadblocks or failures, it is predicted that they would turn to the best space operators in the

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