i have a space colony project and i have to choose a planet to get on. I choose mars but i heard it is impossible to live there. But when i asked my teacher he said oh well you can live on mars if you take away this and add that! i need hellp!
2007-03-26 02:46:36 · 5 answers · asked by hubbacubba7 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Hi Hubba!
There appears no reason in principle why we can't live on Mars.
The real question is whether a Martian base can become self-sustaining, a true Martian colony. There seems no reason why we can't build and provision a base from earth, if we can maintain the will to carry the expense. Remember the Greenland settlements that failed after the end of the Fourteenth Century when the home country lost interest in paying the bills to keep them going?
The question is, whether a colony could produce its own air when none is available naturally, whether it can grow its own food when the light needed for plants is only a fraction of earth's intensity, and whether sufficient extractable water and fuel can be produced to make the settlement self-sustaining.
The next question after that will be, will the colony be economically productive. It will have to offer products or services that will justify the prohibitive cost of moving there and transportation. Military needs are one possibility, but remember that there is currently no colony on the moon because the military potential there has not been great enough for any country to militarize the moon.
2007-03-26 02:56:06 · answer #1 · answered by Anne Marie 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not using current hardware. NASA is developing a new launch system to take over when the shuttle is decommissioned. The heaviest launcher is called the Ares V. Several launches would be required to place sufficient payload into a Mars trajectory to allow any kind of realistic Mars exploration. The expense would be huge, and the politics behind it would have to be equally huge for it to even get off the ground. Notwithstanding the above, it is technically possible to go to Mars and set up a colony there. The problem is more social, political and economic than technological.
2016-03-29 08:10:10 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You need four things to survive. Air, Water, Food and temperature.
You need to breath so you need to either adjust the atmosphere of Mars to be like Earth or you need an enclosure in which you stay that has an atmosphere like Earth. Maybe it is a suit that you travel in but you need a place in which you can repair the suit as well. There appears to be enough water near the poles of Mars that there is a ready source of Oxygen.
The poles can also provide water for you to drink.
Food and Temperature would be complex problems to solve. You probably would need to take a significant power source to support food production and to provide heat to keep you warm. Mars is very cold.
2007-03-26 02:59:54 · answer #3 · answered by anonimous 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You will need to build a pressurized shelter that has oxygen and heat and unless it's deep underground, you will need significant radiation shielding. You could not live on the surface unless you flooded the whole planet with a thick enough oxygen atmosphere to breathe, warmed it about 100 degrees and gave it a magnetic field. All are impossible at the planetary scale.
2007-03-26 02:52:59 · answer #4 · answered by Gene 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
we can live on mars if we terraform it or create bases with a proper atmosphere and environment.
2007-03-26 02:53:42 · answer #5 · answered by neutron 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋