Recently, talk of colonizing Mars has become as popular on Earth as talk of oceans in the sky. Almost all segments of the population are actively interested in the Red Planet: private companies are developing projects for excursion ships (intending, along the way, to slightly heat Mars with nuclear warheads), but government agencies spend a lot of money on theoretical calculations of scientists.
And no one, for some reason, thinks about why we need to colonize Mars at all. The planet is, to put it mildly, not very hospitable. The first travelers will face terrible difficulties - from extreme cold to deadly rays of cosmic radiation. We decided to understand in detail what space migration will cost humanity.
Getting to Mars will not be cheap. NASA's current Mars mission concept envisions a cost of about $ 50 billion over ten years. This is roughly double the cost of all US lunar programs from 1962-1972.
Space flight is a pretty risky thing. Even if all goes well during launch and landing, the ship's life support systems can go wrong at any time during the 9 months that the flight will last. And that's not to mention the intense radiation on the planet itself and the reduced gravity.
Even if we raise enough money and survive in the harsh conditions of deep space travel, getting to the surface of Mars will still be a daunting task. Actually, now there is simply no technology that could carry out a safe landing on Mars. To date, the Curiosity probe remains the largest object sent there.
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Let's imagine that we, nevertheless, made it to Mars. The average temperature here is -27 degrees Celsius, reaching -90 at the poles of the planet. Not the easiest winter, agree.
The atmosphere of Mars is very thin and contains only 0.15% oxygen, while on Earth it is all 21%. We will breathe sparingly. Moreover, most of the atmosphere, about 96%, is carbon dioxide.
Another gift from the local atmosphere: it will not protect us from harmful radiation. The sun's ultraviolet light and cosmic radiation can seriously harm any of the earth's flora and fauna.
Agriculture will become one of the main problems on Mars if it turns out that the local soil is not fertile. We need the right balance of bacteria and chemicals to grow plants on Earth, and as far as we know Martian soil, there is nothing like the red planet.
Water is the key factor for the origin and maintenance of life. Part of Mars was once covered by a huge ocean, which is now only ice at the poles of Mars.
In addition, dust storms constantly occur on Mars, which last for several days. The speed at which they carry tiny dust particles is as much as 70 km / h. Sometimes storms are so powerful that they cover the entire planet for several weeks.
In addition to the already difficult conditions, the survivors of the flight will have to struggle with a sense of loneliness, the power of which is simply impossible to imagine from our planet.
Mars is 12.5 light minutes from our home planet. This means it will take at least 25 minutes to simply contact Earth. In other words, if something went wrong, you should not expect good and timely advice.
On Mars, you weigh 1/3 of your weight. Our muscles developed under the influence of the gravity of the Earth. The lower gravity will cause the body to lose muscle mass, which will be a significant blow to all internal organs.