Space. The final frontier. It is the destiny of Humanity to leave our world, colonize the planets of other stars, and spread throughout the farthest reaches of the galaxy. However, we can’t just go out and start colonizing the galaxy overnight. First off, we need to take relative “baby-steps” and colonize another planet in our Solar System. The best candidate for this; Mars. Mars is the best candidate because it has water ice on its surface, it’s not as hot as Venus or Mercury, it has an atmosphere to shield from asteroid impacts, and its days are nearly as long as Earth’s. There are many reasons for colonization, but 3 big ones are; ensuring the survival of Humans, learning more about the planet and its history, and its economic potential. …show more content…
In an interview with Business Insider, Bill Nye, the CEO of the Planetary Society, said, “If humans go to Mars then scientists estimate we could make discoveries 10,000 times faster than the best robot spacecraft explorers we have now.” Redcolony.com also says, “As any engineer will tell you, the ease with which a human being can cover a stretch of ground and examine specimens along the way, gathering and processing data, cannot be emulated with a machine.” The rovers and probes that we have sent to Mars so far have gathered an iota of data, but if we had a colony of Human scientist on Mars, we could gather so much more data than what we have been able to collect with probes and rovers over the last 20 years. We could learn about the history of the planet, and the formation of the Solar System. The history of Mars could, possibly, include life. According to Redplanet.com, “With its similarity to Earth, there is a strong possibility that bacterial life (or something more?) exists on the planet.” This theory is supported by a statement from John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science. “Briny water flows during the summer months on Mars, raising the possibility that the planet long thought to be arid could support life today…” The salt-rich water that flows on Mars during the summer would be an oasis for bacterial life on the Martian surface. If bacterial life does indeed exist in the brine-water streams, it would be a game-changing discovery for Humanity. And, as aforementioned, the bacteria growing there could start the process of terraforming the Martian surface and atmosphere to make it more suitable for Human life. Mars is also interesting from a geological standpoint. Redplanet.com states, “From a geological standpoint… Mars is exciting because it offers scientists a view of how planets develop. Mars is billions of years older than the Earth, and its features are much more
Why We Should go to Mars “It was obvious to me that we could never colonize Mars without reusability, any more than America would have been colonized if they had to burn the ships after every trip,”(Dave, 2017). This is what Elon Musk said in an interview in Fortune Magazine on December 9th 2013. The fourth planet in our solar system, Mars, is the closest “Earth-like” planet, Which is why SpaceX, NASA, and many other organizations are trying to make a human trip to Mars possible, as well as learning many things about Mars and Earth at the same time. Mars has a lot of potential to be a habitable planet to continue the human race.
In conclusion Mars does have the potential of supporting life, but it might be different life than humans, since the properties of the macromolecules of life might change. Water is essential for life and useful in many ways, such as regulating temperature. The NCHOPS series can be mostly found on Mars, if they are not they can be replaced by the elements that are both found on Mars and need the same number of bonds to become stable.
Mars is most likely planet that has the ingredients of life that is need for a living organism in the solar system other than the known planet Earth. These ingredients of life are the following. The planet in question must be at the correct distance from a host star. Mars is a planet that is on the outer edge of being correct distance of its host star. Next item is that the planet must have water. Mars has water but its water is frozen in the planet ice caps or under the soil. Last is that the planet must have an atmosphere that is suitable for living organisms. Mars’s atmosphere is weak and it is being blown away by the solar winds form the host star. (""Life" on Mars") With Mars’s weak atmosphere the surface temperature of the planet is every cold and the water on the surface of plane...
One of the qualities of the human race is that humans love to explore and find new things, like how Christopher Columbus found America. With most of our planet documented now, where do we have to go? The answer is simply one of the only places we haven’t yet (or may never) explore all of: space. Wars may be waged over land on earth, as there isn’t any new land to find there. So, we can go into space where unexplored land can be conquered and colonized. And while it may not seem like it, in the near future, it may be possible to colonize humans in space.
“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime” was said by Buzz Aldrin, a NASA astronaut. The former American aeronaut from Montclair, New Jersey believes that since Mars does exist, it is waiting to be reached by humans. When this would happen, he says that the human race would “evolve into a two-planet species.” Present day Mars has a lot of canyons, mountains and volcanoes. Even though the surface is Mars is very old, scientists learned about different younger rift valleys, plains, hills and ridges. According to recent reports, there were lakes and rivers, along with an ocean billions of years ago. The low temperatures on the planet cause there to be polar ice caps and frozen water present. Scientists continue to notice several discoveries on the planet that lead them to think there was once life on the planet. Different clues have scientists wanting to find out about even more. Many scientists in the past few centuries have been curious if life on Mars is possible or if it has ever been before.
With all the problems we have on earth and how much we don’t know about our own planet we shouldn’t be colonizing others. We may have the science but we don’t have the funds. We also have tons of willing people but not enough physically and mentally able to colonize a planet. Children are starving all around the world, People are homeless, and wars are starting. Humankind needs to achieve some sort of world peace before trying to explore space. Also, humans will end up destroying life if we try to colonize an
As a country we need to start investing more money and research into space technology. Programs currently exist for this effort, but the potential for research and progress is limited by a lack of funding; compared to other government funded programs, aerospace funding is pitiful. Continued research in space technology is a necessary step in our growth and development not just as a country but also as entire human race. If we are to achieve this goal, it is necessary to increase funding for space research and technology and consider the possibility of colonizing outer space. If we limit our existence to the planet Earth, and continue to drain the resources on this planet, we will destroy the only home we have.
Scientists will be looking to find microorganisms like these on planets such as Mars, as it is known to have similar vents on its surface. (http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/extremophile.html, 2014). During their meeting, they also outlined their plan to search for alien life and told the media that they would be launching the "Transiting Exoplanet Surverying Satelitte" in 2017. (http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/264761/speedreads-nasa-we-will-find-alien-life-within-20-years, 2014). NASA outlined its plan to search for alien life, and said it would launch the "Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite" in 2017.
Have you ever looked up in the sky and wondered if there is life elsewhere in the universe? Have you ever looked at a photograph of Mars and wondered if there really was ever life on it? People have a wide variety of opinions regarding these questions and with good reason. As far back as the broadcast of H. G. Well's novel, "The War of the Worlds", the world has been fascinated with the possibilities of what Mars may hold. Over time, the majority of people have come to realize that there is no way that life can currently be on Mars. Those who are uncertain think there may be microscopic bacteria underground.
The water contained under the soil has had some various effects on the Mars terrain. When the robots were on mars collecting samples, they found some rocks that looked like rocks from prehistoric life here on earth. When analyzing these samples, the scientists deemed that the water was very acidic and salty. This is similar to some of the earlier times in the Australian area.
Recently, two probes were sent back and they made it to Mars. They landed on the South Polar Caps of Mars. That is where NASA plans to find water. After landing on Mars, the probes extracted water like crystals from the surface of Mars. They found that there was a small amount of water in the crystals, which means that there is a strong chance that life, was on Mars at one time.
This provided a list which answered a very important question which I needed in order to understand what planets can or cannot support life. Then I was curious if Mars contained all these characteristics, so I searched on Google if Mars could support life. I found article by space.com. This provided interesting information on why Mars could or could not support life. Even though Mars, may not be able to support terrestrial life, It is promising for smaller life forms and bacterias.
Water provides the necessary conditions for life. Of course, there are a lot of water resources on Mars, and billions of years ago there could be organisms on Mars. However, they are likely to have been eliminated by climate change. So, we can conclude that there may have been life on Mars but for special some reason it already disappeared, but it is undeniable that Mars is the only planet in the solar system close to the Earth's ecological environment. Maybe in the future people may go to Mars to live and
In short, the quickest, most efficient way to explore space would be to manufacture and launch space robots into orbit. The create so many opportunities for scientific discoveries, creations of careers, and a few steps closer to finding out how the universe and everything in it came to be. So are we really just a group of children and the cosmos are a rough neighborhood? The only way to find out is through discovery, and I know I'm going to brave that rough neighborhood.
Mars is a very similar planet to earth in relation to size and atmosphere. Therefore it seemed like the most likely place to search for life. At the end of the 19th century, an American named Percival Lowell built himself an observatory so that it was possible for him to study Mars in intimate detail when its orbit was closest to Earth. At this time it had recently been suggested that the planet had a system of channels on the surface, present from the evaporation of flowing water. Looking through his telescope Lowell became convinced he could see a network of artificial canals. This led him to believe that there were intelligent beings on Mars who had built these canals. However, spacecraft have now visited Mars and found that there is no evidence of water at all. It is now thought that the lines he could see were the combination of Lowell's overactive imagination, and scratches on the lens of his telescope. We are now searching one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, as this seems to be the next likely place to hold life.