Top 5 blockers to establish a foothold on Mars
We need to overcome problems with fuel efficiency, spaceship size and amenities, flight duration, radiation, G-force.
Why Mars?
People on Earth have debated why humankind should invest time and resources to seek out habitable exoplanets for decades. Many advocates are driven by the vision of humans as a multiplanetary species to expand their habitable space, as well as to improve safety of the civilization concentrated on only one planet that faces many issues such as global warming, growing economic inequality, crime rate etc.
For science-driven people, the Red Planet represents an unprecedented opportunity to perform the next level of fundamental breakthroughs and celebrate the glory of human intelligence and ingenuity.
For sustainability-conscious experts, the expansion presents a potential solution to the scarcity of resources on Earth and the strain that human activity is putting on the planet’s ecosystem. We will need two planets’ worth of natural resources every year by 2050 with current trends. Mars will provide more space and resources, as well as new technologies that can be used to address the pressing issues on Earth.
For politicians, the Mars project could create value by driving the global economy and switch the focus of the population from a growing negative background to a new positive and pioneering mentality. Inspiring people to come together and unite four-square behind a truly global effort. Such a project can be implemented only through collaboration of many countries.
For entrepreneurs, a new habitable planet means a multi-trillion market opportunity, with a lot of headroom for innovative solutions.
Mars inspires people the same way the New World inspired settlers centuries ago. Philosophers and artists believe that Mars can spark Interplanetary Renaissance and lead to improved moral paradigm and planetary thinking.
So what hurdles do we need to overcome to finally establish a foothold on Mars?
Problem 1: Fuel efficiency
To reach Mars, we need a rocket that can accelerate to a speed of roughly 16.2 km/s or 60,000 km/h, which is not workable quite yet because current propulsion methods need a lot of fuel for big interplanetary crew modules. For example, Falcon 9 can accelerate to 30,000 km/h and weighs 550 tons, 525 of which is the weight of fuel. Interplanetary travel requires much larger rockets than Falcon 9. NASA recently tested SLS, a super heavy-lift launch vehicle, and SpaceX targets 2024 for the first commercial launch of Starship.
The super heavy-lift rocket is a crucial step towards expansion to Mars.
Problem 2: Spaceship size and amenities
A manned flight to Mars takes roughly 6 months. Naturally, the spaceship would need to be outfitted with comfortable living spaces, where the crew can train, work, and rest. We often see such ships in movies like Interstellar, The Martian, and WALL-E but they remain impossible to manufacture. The existing spaceships are still too small, even the famous Space Shuttle operated by NASA from 1981 to 2011. Musk’s Starship will be capable of carrying up to 100 people.
Instead of manufacturing gigantic spaceships on Earth and launching them into space using tons of fuel, we can attempt to build them in orbit, the same way the ISS was built. It was created from relatively small modules sent from Earth, and now it is as large as a football field. It is likely that spaceships with interplanetary travel capabilities will be manufactured in orbit from hundreds or thousands of small modules.
Problem 3: Flight duration
A one-way 6 months flight to Mars will require availability of life-sustaining resources like food and water. If the mission has 7 crew members, the weight of food alone will take up as much as 7 tons. We recently wrote a substantial article about the space food industry. So far, technologies that allow you to grow artificial food on Earth on scale are on early stages of development.
A zero-gravity environment limits the availability of resources for each crew member. Artificial gravity can potentially resolve the issue, but we are years, if not decades, away from such technology. Moreover, for the crew it will be more difficult to consult with mission control to resolve issues because it usually takes 5-20 minutes for a radio signal to travel the distance between Mars and Earth. Lastly, the astronauts will have to endure confined spaces, which can be a taxing experience.
Problem 4: Radiation
A strong magnetic field protects us from radiation on Earth. The magnetic field on Mars is several times weaker than on Earth, and it is impossible to create it artificially just yet. It’s unlikely that people will crave a life on Mars, given the health risks that the planet poses. Scientists believe that astronauts can dig deep into the Martian soil to decrease exposure to radiation. Alternatively, genetic engineering might present a potentially viable solution: if we took a bacteria that survived high levels of radiation and injected it into a human body, the person could perhaps become immune.
Problem 5: G-force
G-force overloads occur due to a sudden change in speed because of atmospheric influence (remember how it feels when a bus or train suddenly pulls breaks). When returning to Earth from the ISS, astronauts experience an overload of roughly 4.5 G. For return trips from Mars it can be 24.5 G which can be fatal. To compare, people usually experience 1.5 G when they are on a plane. We’d need to use a lot of extra fuel to reduce the speed when approaching the Earth, which is very costly - a solution here may be to introduce new flight trajectories.
The most dangerous factor
The most dangerous factor is the unknown. Any space mission is extremely complex, and it is almost impossible to predict everything. For instance, although the ISS was launched almost 30 years ago, many unforeseen situations still arise (here is our topic about space stations). Moreover, we have little data about other planets: although we use remotely-controlled robots to study them, there are very limited amounts of information that we can collect and then use for research. Considering the lack of reliable data, astronauts will have to play it by ear quite often.
Will we ever set foot on Mars?
The problems mentioned above are purely tech-related. We have no doubt that humankind will be able to solve these issues if we significantly ramp up private and public investments in space tech. When in September of 1962, John Kennedy announced the first human would land on the Moon in the span of 7 years, no one thought it was possible. Nevertheless, because of a tremendous government and private effort, as well as the brilliance of engineers, the mission was successful. These investments will pay off not only with knowledge but also with benefits for all mankind - gradually technologies from outer space will enter our lives.
Many of the aforementioned problems are already being addressed. The Mars Society is the world’s largest and most influential space advocacy organization dedicated to the human exploration and settlement of Mars. Private companies are collaborating with space agencies to build necessary spacecrafts, scientists are studying various radiation protection methods, and venture capital firms are betting on bright entrepreneurs who are building valuable technologies for space missions. Hopefully, the first astronauts will land on Mars in the next couple of decades, and as soon as that happens, spacetech’s momentum will never slow down. We believe the colonization of the Red Planet is only a question of time. The drive for exploration is embedded into the DNA of a small percentage of the population, but that was enough for them to lead homo sapiens to spread to all continents. Who are the new explorers to lead this new leap of development of humankind?
The Space Ambition Research Center is currently studying necessary technologies for Mars colonies with a group of space enthusiasts who participated in The Mars Society challenge. Please email alexandra@spaceambition.org if you would like to contribute to research or find out more.
We would like to thank CrowdSpace for their contribution. Check out the team’s pitch at the Mars Society challenge.
Thanks for the article. I’m curious how much do we need to invest to develop those technologies? $100B? $1 trillion? If it’s a matter of money could we afford it in the next decade?