Nobel Prize of year 2019 has brought the issue of the study of the exoplanet systems and the exploration of the signature of life there, a mainstream subject of science. Here the author discusses some key aspects of the habitability in a lucid way which are likely to become a frontier trend of study in coming days.
Posted by: Dr Dwaipayan Deb, Physics Department, R G M College, Silchar 788001, India and Associate, CASILab (Email: dwaipayandeb@yahoo.co.in)
When Elon Musk announced his Mars mission to build a station there by 2050, I was fascinated by the idea of having a planet other than earth becoming a colony of human civilization. It was something like science fiction stories that I loved to read in my childhood, is becoming true. In last few decades, the science and technology has been so advanced that we are now planning for an extra-terrestrial life. But the question is - will it be easy for us to develop a colony on another planet with our existing technology? Certainly it will not be easy, but, is it going to be actually feasible for us to colonize on a hostile planet like Mars? This is a very important question and must be addressed with great care before starting a trillion dollar project on an alien world. In this blog I shall try to point out only a few of many basic points which challenges us to have a home on Mars.
Energy Requirement: Probably energy requirement is going to be most challenging aspect of running a base station on Mars. As there is little oxygen in the martian atmosphere, we shall have to depend upon artificially generated oxygen for breathing which will continuously require lots of power. Further, surface temperature of Mars is well below -60 degree Celsius during the night time, even at the equatorial region, and therefore an artificial temperature maintenance system is necessary. This will also require lots of energy. Idea of green housing on Mars is not much efficient because of less solar power at a distance 1.5 times that of earth. Also, for the generation of heat we can not use fire, as that will increase oxygen consumption which is unwanted, and therefore we must depend upon electric power. These are few examples, but sufficient to realize that we need to generate a lot of electric power everyday for running a station on Mars. The main sources of electric power generation on earth are - hydroelectricity, wind-electricity, thermal power and solar power. Hydroelectric power is not possible on Mars because it needs flowing water. Wind electricity also may not be much efficient because of very thin but highly dusty martian air. Thermal electricity is theoretically possible if heat is produced by nuclear reactor, but not cost efficient to construct a nuclear reactor at Mars in the initial stage. So, chiefly we have to depend upon Solar Power. But remember, since Mars is 1.5 times farther from sun than from earth, we will be able to generate only 1/1.5^2 times of the power generated by a solar panel of same size on earth. Apart from this, Mars's dust storms are also big challenge for solar power generation. So, it's going to be quite difficult to generate electric power continuously on Mars.
Food: Next big challenge will be with the food supply. As a return trip to Mars is going to be quite costly, food supply to the Mars station from earth is not possible. So, future martians must develop their own farm on Mars for food. Obviously, 100% farming has to be done within airtight green house, because martian atmosphere is not suitable for growing earthly veggies. Non-veg farming is not a good idea as it will increase oxygen consumption (so, Mars is suitable for vegans (?)). However, modern techniques of producing biological organism within laboratory is being developed, and that may help in this regard. As plenty of liquid water is needed for farming, a water recycling unit is required. All the cereals and vegetables that we grow on earth will not perhaps grow on martian soil because of its composition, and therefore, choice of food will be limited. For staying long time this can be irritating, because, on earth we are habituated to variety of foods.
Communication to earth: Sunlight comes to earth with a delay of 8 minutes due to the distance. Similarly, due to distance between earth and Mars which changes between 0.37 AU to 2.6 AU, there is a delay between transmission and reception of radio signals between earth and Mars. On average, it takes about 12 minutes to receive a radio signal at Mars after it is sent from earth and vice-versa. With such a huge delay in communication, this is going to be impractical to have live conversations with someone on earth. This may not affect the scientific goal of the mission, as the persons sent to Mars will be trained to take necessary steps by themselves when necessary, but, this constraint will restrict social communications with the people on earth, and in the long run this may have a negative psychological impact on the first martians.
Gravity: This is an important issue for colonizing on Mars. Human body is designed for earthly environment. In principle, we can develop everything in a closed chamber on Mars like earth, but the gravity. On Mars we would feel 2.7 times reduced gravity than earth. That means, a person weighing 60 Kg on earth, will feel a weight of 22.2 Kg on Mars. Effect of low gravity on human body for long time exposure is yet to know, and therefore one way trip to mars does not seem to be a good idea.
Manpower: On earth we have been able to develop such a huge and advanced civilization because we are here in good numbers and work together to achieve a big goal. With fewer manpower this would not have been possible. On Mars too, it will not be possible to develop a colony, and run it for long time with limited number of people (obviously we can not send very large numbers of people at a time). However, advancement in robotics may help, but, it is yet to develop a robot which can behave like a human in all respect.
Local resources: Availability of local resources is very important in colonizing on Mars. We are able to build large numbers of constructions and production lines here, because, row materials needed are available on earth, and would not be possible if we needed to import these from a distant planet. Similarly, for colonizing on Mars, we have to depend upon local resources to fulfill our requirements. For example, for nuclear power generation, heavy water D2O is used as moderator. On earth, D2O is present in normal water in a very small proportion, which is extracted in a complicated process, and therefore, it's a costly chemical. Fortunately, D2O is present in martian water in good proportion, and therefore, nuclear power might be a good choice on Mars in this respect. But, the same D2O rich water is not suitable for drinking purpose, because it is known to slow down metabolism process and may create health hazard.
These are a few points which show that colonizing on Mars is going to be a difficult job for our present civilization, and many decades are yet to go in order to develop required technology. Hope Elon Musk and his company will do everything needful to save future martians, and not going to put people's life into risk by claiming that, it is going to successfully send humans in a Mars station by 2050.
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