Challenges Surrounding Mars colonization and Reasons Why to do it

Andrew Rodriguez

Honors College Senior Capstone Project

Spring 2021 University of Wyoming

Introduction

The idea of colonization Mars have been a hot topic in the last couple of decades, with people such as Robert Zubrin writing an article called The Case for Colonizing Mars back in

1996, and more recently with movies such as the Martian showing an astronaut being stuck on

Mars, or with the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk stating that the goal of SpaceX is to enable the colonization Mars. With the advancements in Rocket technology and now having decades of experience of having people living in space, the goal of setting up a Martian colony within the next decade or so is starting to seem reasonable to an increasing amount of people, making people to ask the question of should we colonize Mars. The problems that would need to be overcome in order to set up a Mars colony are difficult, unique problems that if not solved would prevent a Mars colony from succeeding. The transportation challenge of having a way to have an economically viable rocket while also making sure the potential colonist stays safe.

Another challenge would be trying to access and use the local resources on Mars in order to sustain the colony. The long-term health effects of staying in a low gravity environment is relatively unknown while there has not been to much of a discussion about what type of laws that would be used at the colony are all problems that need to be solved in order to be able to make a successful Martian colony.

With all these challenges that are present in trying to go to Mars, it raises several questions to why we should bother funding a trip to go there in the first place. However, going to Mars will be something that can and will pay off in the long run. By working on being able to go to Mars, it will lead to a variety of technology being made to go into space and develop the capacity to go around the solar system. The Martian colony can be used to get access to resources that are more common on Mars and even be used to help get resources from the asteroid belt. The increase presence in space will be useful for being able to detect and prevent any sort of threat that can come from space and maybe even provide solution for global problems on Earth. While there are many problems that would need to be solved, the benefits are worth it and is why we should be pushing for the colonization of Mars.

Challenges Surrounding Mars Colonization

Transportation to Mars

The first problem to solve in setting up the first Mars colony would be solving the transportation problems that exist when it comes to getting large amount of people and supplies off Earth and to Mars safety in a practical manner. There is going to be a limited budget that can be afforded to the colonization effort, meaning that if we were to spend billions of dollars per trip just for the rocket to get to Mars, it would prevent colony from even starting as the price tag would be unaffordable. The second problem is to make sure that colonist is able to arrive safety at the colony, since making a colony will require a massive amount of people to make it Mars and back to Earth, if they can’t, then the public support for the colony will not exist.

To solve the price problem, the best way to do so would be to use rockets that can be reused. By using a reusable rocket, that would mean the just for paying for one rocket, it would cover the price of transportation for several trips, as the price for rocket fuel is very cheap in comparison to the price of a rocket itself. In addition, it would offer more flexibility when to comes to the problem of returning from Mars to Earth. A reusable rocket that uses a fuel that could be produced on Mars would mean that the rocket would only need to carry the fuel to get to Mars, thus requiring a smaller rocket, something that would be cheaper to make. A good example of a rocket that would fit the needs for transportation is the currently being tested Starship from SpaceX. The Starship is a two-stage design that would use the lower stage to boost the upper stage into Earth orbit.

The upper stage is powerful enough to make it Figure 1 A illustration of the upper stage of Starship on the moon and land on Mars, and if it is refueled on Mars, it would be powerful enough to make the trip back. In theory, the rocket would be able reused up to over a hundred times, however that is something that is still be tested and the amount of reuse would change as they go through different variations of the Starship. Currently, the options to get over to Mars in the next few years is being restricted to mainly SpaceX as most other companies and governments are not working on such a design, but it is likely as we get closer to starting the colonization effort and as the colony grows, that the market for transportation for Earth to Mars will grow and we will see a plethora of options.

Maintaining health of the colonists will be more difficult due to the hostile conditions of space that would cause unavoidable problems. There are several studies done on the astronauts living in the International Space Station which has shown numerous health problems that would apply for a trip going to

Mars and would need to be taken care off to prevent permanent harm coming to the colonists. The radiation that comes from space is something that is normally not a problem for us living on the surface, Figure 2 An astronaut exercising on a treadmill. however, would be a huge problem for the people going to Mars and back. The radiation exposure can be reduced by using the cargo of the rocket to be between the colonist and space, as well as using materials that can be especially effective at blocking radiation to be built into the rocket. Other problems come from the lack of gravity. Without gravity, the body weight bearing bones start to lose up to 1.5% of the mineral density per month and in addition, the fluids in the body evolved to be in Earth’s gravity well, meaning that the lack of will cause fluids to shift upwards causing eye problems. Using pressure devices that can help redirect the body fluids and bisphosphonate medications that help prevent mineral loss can be solutions to these problems and is something to keep working on as development of the colony takes place.

Access to Local Resources

How would the people being living on Mars is something that will depend on how the colonization of Mars is going, most likely is that the first colonist living on Mars will be living on the rockets that brought them as well as using supplies that was brought from Earth. However, to make a self-sufficient colony on Mars that would not cost a large sum of money to sustain from Earth, it makes sense to procure resources locally. Studies done by NASA has shown large

Figure 3 A map showing the location of ice on Mars and how deep it is. The box is a recommend spot marked by NASA. deposits of ice that is located underground that could be mined to provide a source of water and oxygen for the colonists. The Martian soil has large amounts of perchlorates in it that would need to be removed as well as having a reduced amount of nitrogen that would need to be supplemented if we were to use the soil to grow food, but it is something that could done.

One of the most important things to make, the rocket fuel to head back to Earth, could be created from using the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the water from the ice deposits using the Sabatier process to make methane, a fuel that is currently being planned for several next generation rockets such as the Starship from SpaceX and the rocket from Blue

Origin.

Long-term Health Problems

A problem that may not easily be solved in the long-term health problems that comes from living in reduced gravity, a topic that has not been tested before due to the difficulties in artificially creating such an environment. As mentioned earlier, there has been studies done on the ISS testing the effects on keeping someone in an environment where they are in a state of constant freefall, but we currently do not know how much problems that people face on the ISS will carry over to living in the low gravity environment of Mars. One of the problems that is almost certain to be faced by colonists would the muscle weakening to some degree, something that may be a problem, depending on how severe it is. While some of the lessons that we learn on the ISS will be able to be applied on Mars, such as maintaining a daily exercise regimen, which would help in the case of the muscle degeneration, there could be entirely new health problems that is unique to a low gravity environment that if they exist, then will need to be addressed if the colony on Mars is to succeed. With the information lacking, it is a reason for the first people to land on Mars to only stay there until the transfer window back to Earth opens up, and then head back to see if there was a long-term problem with staying on Mars.

The only way to find out before would be to either create a large space station that is designed to rotate, using the centripetal force as a way to simulate gravity and do a long-term study or to create a base on the moon and have people live there for a long enough time to test for this.

The long-term health problems that could exist is something that we know the least about and is one of the most important things that needs to be discovered and treated for if the colony on

Mars is to succeed.

The Laws Surrounding the Colony

One problem that is not often discussed when talking about colonizing Mars is the laws that will be surrounding the colony. Currently, the main law that covers activities in space in the Outer Space Treaty, which was created in 1967, which banned the use of nuclear weapons in space, says space can only use for peaceful purposes, and space is free to explore for all nations. The law does not cover how any laws surrounding colonies should work, other then one part that mentions that countries can not claim a celestial body in space as their own. This has led to countries such as the United States, China, and Japan to start making their own laws making it legal to do space mining, but currently there is no international law covering the subject. This is important due to what laws would people on the colony should be subjected to, how much control would companies get in colony matters, and especially if the colony wants to get some degree of autonomy. If the colony is mainly being funded by companies based in the

United States, then should the people on the colony count as being in the United States, even if there are parts that are funded by other nations and people from other nations? These are questions that will need to be address since this can shaped drastically how the colony is formed. If the colony was more of a joint effort between the government and companies of two nations, how would the laws on the colony be determined, or would that be enough reason to make a unique set of laws for colony. Or if for example, the laws surrounding space mining was made into an international law, then it would be feasible to help drawn in funding and resources from companies by selling the land nearby the colony to be mined for resources.

Companies would then be much more likely to financially support the colonization effort if they had a chance to make a profit by doing, which then could boost the creation of the colony. The laws are something that needs to be determined in the next few years, preferably before we are setting people on the surface.

Reasons why to Go to Mars

Developing our Space Capability

The first reason is the technology that can and will be develop in trying to go to Mars. As shown, there was several hurdles that needed to be overcome to have a successful attempt at colonizing the red planet, and these technologies will be beneficial for not just the colonist, but for humanity as a whole.

Technology is something that does not just automatically continue to improve over time, it is something that people need to keep working on in order to make progress in the field and get more able to do things with them. This Figure 4 is especially important when it comes to the field of Space exploration. If people are not interested in trying to develop rockets and other technology to go into space, then we are not going to make progress doing so, which is what happened after the space race of the 1960s. With decreasing public support after the moon race, the U.S government reacted by lowering the budget that NASA had gets as part of the federal budget, and has been in decline since then, effectively starving them of the ability to fund any serious attempts to send people away from low earth orbit. While NASA has been able to fund additional research to learn more about topics that will be useful to go to Mars, it has not led to us to returning to the moon or going anywhere else since then. The newest rocket that is being develop for NASA, the SLS, is a design that is effectively outdated in comparison to SpaceX Starship and have spent much more time in development. The SLS is designed to be completely expendable and is even using booster that comes from the space shuttle and redesign to be completely expendable rather than increasing the reusability of the boosters. With NASA having no other rocket that they are building to use and the SLS being constantly delayed, NASA is dependent on private companies and other government to get into space. If people are interested in having a future where humanity can go and travel the solar system and beyond, then the technology needs to be developed. By pushing for the colonization of Mars, it will be the first step in leading us to the future where there are humans in space.

Long-term Resource Solution

Going to Mars will also lead to helping solve a lot of the resource shortages that are present for some resources on Earth. In the process of developing a colony on Mars, we will get access to resources such as deuterium which makes up 833 out of one million hydrogen atoms in comparison to the 166 per million hydrogen that is on Earth.

With a fleet of rockets that are going back and Figure 5 An example of how asteroid mining could look like forth from Mars to Earth, it becomes possible to gather such example of rare resources from

Mars and bring it back to Earth, where it can easily go for $10,000 per kilogram. Such trades like these will make it easier for the Martian colony to be economically self-sustaining in the future.

In addition, with the access to space being develop, it becomes possible to take advantage of the asteroid belt that is just past Mars orbit. There are asteroids that are made up of all sorts of resources that is useful to have access to, whether it is carbon, iron, gold, or anything else, meaning that if we where able to use the colony being set up on Mars as a starting point for asteroid mining, it will make all those rare resources easily available on Earth. Looking at one article doing a techno-economic analysis to find out in asteroid mining in profitable, it is with the right developments in technology, meaning that an export of these resources will be something that becomes more possible due to the Martian colony. As well as resources like water is something that is far easier to access while in space rather than to send up from a planet, making it possible to cheaply refuel water and potentially other resources for rockets that are in space.

Preventing Doomsday and Humanity’s Backup Plan

One of the most chilling ideas is the idea that all of humanity can just be wiped out in a single event, whether it would be a nuclear war, an asteroid hitting the planet, or just being unlucky and getting hit by some massive. By working to set up the Mars colony can help with the problems in two major ways, firstly, the technology and infrastructure can be used to prevent some of the doomsday scenarios from happening. Secondly, if the worst was to come, then by having set up colony on a different planet means that if Earth is lost, then humanity may still be able to continue on Mars.

The fact is that there are many threats that exist in space that could cause serious harm to life on Earth. One of the most well know ideas is the idea of an asteroid several kilometers wide, a similar size to one that wipe out the dinosaurs, to hit earth and cause a repeat of that event today. The threat is not just a theoretical situation, NASA has identified over 1,400 asteroids that passes earth orbit that are over 1 Kilometer in diameter that are thought to be potentially hazardous to Earth. The problem does not end there, as there could asteroids or comets that have not been detected yet that could pose a threat, and we won’t be able to react until it is too late. The solution then would be to increase the amount of data that can come in from space, which is something that will happen as part of the colonization of Mars. The colonization of Mars would mean the creation of a satellite network as well as the using the location of Mars to build new telescopes that could give us extra information about objects in space, even if it is just the objects near Mars. With the majority of the asteroids that can potentially threaten Earth coming in from outer part of the solar system, setting up on a location closer would give us more information about these asteroids.

We will also get more then just additional information about objects in the solar system, the fleet of reusable rockets could be used in methods to help prevent the doomsday situation. If we identify an asteroid that is heading towards the planet, instead of having to build a new Figure 6 An example of a method that could be used to redirect an asteroid. rocket or repurpose an existing rocket in an attempt to pull of a plan to redirect the asteroid, it means that we will have several rockets that are built to go long distances in space, giving us much more choices and chances on how to deal with the asteroid. In addition, it is not just asteroids that the rockets will be helpful against, it could also be useful for problems created by humans, such as climate change. If the global heating of the planet continues to worsen, the rockets could be used to put objects in space that is between the Sun and Earth, to serve the purpose of reducing the amount of sunlight that hits the planet, thus cooling the planet down.

Having these fleet of rockets can serve many uses that can help with prevent any sort of major disaster that can cause a doomsday event on Earth.

Building a colony on Mars does not prevent every major threat to life on Earth, but it does give humanity a backup plan if the worse was to happen. A truly self-sufficient colony that is set up on Mars would mean that if life on Earth gets wiped out, then humans still exist along with samples of life from Earth and could make a recovery. It is this idea that people like Elon

Musk talk about as a reason to build a Martian colony, that while the colony does not help us, it does help some future generation of people and prevents humanity from going extinct.

Conclusion

As shown, there are multiple problems that would need to be addressed to colonize

Mars. For some of these problems, they either have solutions already, or are being worked on, such as the case for the transportation problems. With the real unknown being how humans will react to being in a constant low gravity and how people will work out the political situation, there has been no problem here that is simple just unsurmountable. The benefits that we stand to gain however is something that should be considered when asking the question of why we should colonize Mars. Being able to travel around the solar system, have an increase accessed to rare resources and being able to do something about threats from space is an important consideration when it comes to answering why colonize Mars. References

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