For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the night sky and pondered their place in the cosmos. One little red dot in particular has long held our interest: Mars. Today, experts believe it's no longer a question of if we'll ever set foot on the Red Planet, but when. Recent technological advances mean this could happen within decades. While the dream of colonizing Mars is a fascinating one, is it a good idea? What will be the biggest challenges? And once we get there, could we even survive?
The biggest incentive for putting humans on Mars is to have "an insurance mechanism for our species," says Stephen Petranek, author of How We'll Live on Mars. "We're a nomadic species. We learned long ago that if we don't move, we don't survive...
…show more content…
But such flares can be detected in advance and temporary radiation shelters used to largely protect the crew. A longer term hazard is the general exposure to higher levels of radiation whether it be from the sun or sources external to the solar system. We can minimize these effects, but there will be increased exposure and thus a higher risk of cancer later in life.
Indeed, the adverse effects of radiation are humanity's biggest hurdle to living in space. Research suggests that astronauts would experience short-term neural damage from high-energy space radiation particles. Astronauts on the International Space Station are shielded from these rays by Earth's magnetosphere, but on Mars, astronauts will have no such protection.
A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that even six months after returning to Earth, Mars astronauts would experience brain inflammation and neuron damage. Other side effects of long-term space travel could include memory problems, anxiety, and depression. The study concludes with a dire warning: "Cosmic radiation exposure poses a real and potentially detrimental neurocognitive risk for prolonged deep space travel... [and] deep space travel poses a real and unique threat to the integrity of neural circuits in the
The first question is, why should we go to Mars? What are the advantages of traveling to Mars in the first place? One reason could be that it would help increase life across our universe, (Mars One 2017), Or to have another planet to live on if the Earth dies. Increasing life across our universe would help us spread out our population and prosper as the human race.
In fact, fear is necessary when it comes to making improvements and preventing things from happening by taking precautions. Along with the fear of the world ending, there comes plans for solutions. The ideal solution would be to colonize other planets. This idea has been around since the time of we knew other planets existed. Living on other planets for a long time was was just a thing for the future, it was something only movies or children with wild imaginations would talk about, but the future is a lot closer than we think. People see space colonization is the resolution for the problems here on earth. Colonizing in unfamiliar planets could be a replacement for earth incase someday it ends and scientist have been working on improving technology and making huge advances for the day that humans live on foreign planets
But actually, for the astronaut’s entire trip to the depths of space from Moon and back, the astronauts really only obtained a dose equal to about one-tenth of one per cent of the radiation needed for a dose that could kill a human being. The explanation is that the harmful effects from radiation are equivalent to the strength of the radiation and the time that it is exposed. A human would need to spend almost four months touching the Van Allen belts to receive a dose to kill somebody. The astronauts passed through them in only one single hour. As for their time spent beyond the Earth's magnetic field, where the astronauts could be exposed to cosmic radiation, an astronaut could make a one-way trip to Mars and not receive a dose that exceeds NASA's lifetime limits and that also do not come close to a lethal
Space is 92 billion light years in diameter and ever growing. Despite it’s size, there is more knowledge about this massive area, miles outside the atmosphere, than there is about the cluster of tissue and nerves that is called the brain. With the immensely complex structure of the human brain, it is not surprising that from conception to old age many things can become faulty or even just fail to develop correctly in the first place.
Radiation has both beneficial and harmful effects. The most detrimental health effect on humans, is the incidence of cancer, which has been studied. Humans are exposed to radiation more than they realize. They are exposed medically with x-rays, just by being outside with cosmic rays, and by accidents such as at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Exposure to radiation is high and more studies are done which improve radiation protection.
Who knows what kind of opportunities can come from Mars? We can use the many resources that have already been found on this planet, it could help us in many ways beyond space exploration, and it could even be a new place for us to live. That’s why I believe that the government should fund space exploration to Mars.
...egular people, believing that if someone was to go to Mars they might have been able to survive A variety of organic compounds present may mean a life is probable. Also, if the trip to Mars in 2023 turns out to be a positive one, then it will prove to everyone that in the future more and more people will move to this other planet. A lot of people will find it unnecessary to stay on Earth if they can start a new life somewhere else in the galaxy. Even though the trip will have America paying billions and billions of dollars, it truly is worth it. A life on Mars could mean living to an older age and being healthier. The point of going to the Red Planet is to find out if there is a better life somewhere other than on Earth. Just like NASA astronaut, Buzz Aldrin said, humans will most likely reach Mars and when they do humans will turn into a two-planet species.
Mars is our next best hope in life on another planet. Because of science mankind can grow and harvest plants in the modified mars soil, make a thick warm atmosphere, and drink no frozen mars water. Mankind can grow and flourish more as a species with this idea of colonizing mars. With more scientific advancements we can colonize mars and we will colonize mars.
Radiation is all around us and exposure to it is inevitable. Some of the exposure, such as in the environment, is unintentional. We are also purposely exposed to it in medical imaging. As stated above, there are many positive and negative sides to radiation. Medical imaging has grown tremendously over the years and allows us to detect injuries, and diseases. The negative side to radiation, is all of the dangerous health effects that can harm our body. There is a lot of research that scientists are working on to reduce the amount of radiation that our bodies are exposed to when undergoing medical imaging.
Today’s astronauts stay in the safe confines of Earth’s magnetosphere, while the Apollo astronauts spent just a few days at the Moon. However, on Mars, each Ares crew was spending up to a month on the surface in the movie. Watney, who spends more than a year on the surface of mars and has nothing but his spacesuit for protection from radiation. In the article, “How Safe Is Safe Enough? Radiation Risk for a Human Mission to Mars”, fatal cancer risk has been considered the dominant risk for galactic cosmic rays (GCR), however, recent epidemiological analysis of radiation risks for circulatory diseases allow for predictions of REID(risk of exposure induced death) for circulatory diseases to be included in cancer risk predictions for space missions (Cucinotta et al. 9-10).
Although traveling and colonizing Mars would be revolutionary, there are many health risks in exploring this mysterious red planet. One health risk that could arise from the future traveling and colonizing Mars is the mental health issues like anxiety and depression that could occur in Mars space travel. As Author Laurie Vasquez writes in her article “Could Humans Actually Live on Mars” she elaborates that “Other side effects of long-term space travel could include memory problems, anxiety, and depression”. Another important health risk to point out in Mars space exploration is short term neurological damage space travel can do on your brain. Neural circuits in the brains of astronauts would get damage and cause a serious brain impact. As Vasquez
Radiation is one of the most dangerous and easiest way of having health effects. Radiation was first discovered by Roentgen. Hazards are the first things people need to know in order to understand what it can do to your body. It causes many health effects on everyone out in the world. It harms people in the dentistry and field and even in the medical field. Normal people out the world can also be exposed when coming into one of these offices and getting x-rays of some type.
Terraforming Mars is the process of making mars hospitable to human life and colonizing a safe environment for people to live. Mars, in retrospect, is the most earth-like planet that resides in our solar system, therefore it is the best planet amongst those around earth for us to attempt to inhabit. I would choose to use a timeline of one thousand years to complete the inhabitation process. Most scientist’s timeline is between one hundred and one hundred thousand years, I believe one hundred is much too short and we would be moving to fast and possibly make a mistake along the way. One hundred thousand on the other hand is too long, earths population would be far too high and we would need another environment sooner. Mars has a good amount of resources available for us to use if we make it to mars, these include oxygen, nitrogen, and water.
...usion, the major challenges that humans could face on an expedition to Mars and back; are radiation exposure, biological problems induced by weightlessness, spacecraft
...mperatures and climates on Mars, the possibility of people reaching the planet and surviving, is realistic according to scientist. Mars One, a community of scientist who believe in this reality, has already begun to collect applications for those willing to take a one-way trip to Mars. They plan to start making these trips in 2024 (Human Settlement on Mars). It may not seem realistic to be able to start human settlement on Mars in just ten years, but it is possible.