Greenworld
A glimpse into the future of a colonised Mars
It used to be barren, dusty and as rust-red as the Nevada buttes.
Who can remember those early days? Not these children, tall, slender and healthy, as they scamper across grassy fields under a blue sky. The trees stretch higher than Earth trees. If anyone were to stop and stare upwards, far into the distance, they might be able to pick out faint thread-lines in hexagonal shapes. Rivers sparkle, clear as crystal. Crops grow in neat lines in the fields. Birds flutter in the branches. Horses, dogs, hens and other animals live contentedly on this happy world.
In 1897 H.G. Wells wrote his magnificent and eminently scary story about Martian invaders. We had no idea at the time whether or not that planet was inhabited. Schiaparelli concluded that the streaks he could see on the surface were canals. This added to the notion that people, perhaps more intelligent than we, lived there. Mars was traditionally the god of war so if there were inhabitants it was assumed they’d be hostile. The Red Planet had a sinister reputation.
Now of course, we know all that was nonsense. Schiaparelli was correct in one sense. The streaks were not canals but there are dried-up river valleys on Mars. That meant the planet once had free-running water, which in turn meant it was warmer than it is now.
Earth is in the so-called ‘Goldilocks Zone’ — not too hot, not too cold, at 93 million miles from the Sun. Mars is the fourth planet and at a distance of 141 million miles is considerably colder than Earth. The average mean temperature is minus 63 degrees Celsius, so the water that exists is frozen and stored in two ice-caps.
The planet is ravaged by sandstorms and the light levels are low and gloomy, ranging from 37% to 50% of Earth’s. Our circadian rhythms would probably adapt quite easily to Martian days which are 24 hours and 40 minutes long, but as it takes 686 Earth days to orbit the Sun, a year is twice as long as we’re used to. There would be seasons because Mars is tilted at an axis of 25 degrees - not too different from Earth’s which is 23.5 degrees - so summers would be six months long…but so would winters.
Who’d be content — even eager — to call such an intimidating place ‘home’?
Plenty of people. There was a plan, a few years ago, to send a hundred brave volunteers on a one-way trip to Mars. The trip would take about seven months and they would have to live on dried food and recycled water till they arrived and could set up their own crop farms. The atmosphere on Mars is too thin to shield against radiation so they would need strong protection and might even, at first, have to live underground.
Whether this particular planned venture will proceed at some point, remains to be seen, but I’m convinced someone somewhere will have the initiative to stride forward and begin the colonisation of Mars.
From a psychological point of view, these volunteers will need to be strong-minded. They’ll have to conquer terrible homesickness, after all, Earth is a beautiful planet, full of life and colour. They will be separated from friends and family, their only view being red rocks, boulders and sand. They’ll need to be team players and get along with one another.
Would anyone consider such a mission?
When NASA put out a request, stating the difficulties and stressing this would likely be a one-way trip. Did anyone step forward?
Thousands. Over 200,000 people applied!
We’re an inquisitive species. Our distant ancestors didn’t stay put; they wandered away from their comfortable little niches and ended up all over the globe. Now, we’re capable of taking it a step further. We have the knowledge, we have the technology and we have the spirit of endeavour.
There’s an inspirational quote, written over 400 years ago, by German scientist Johannes Kepler: Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. In the meantime, we shall prepare, for the brave sky travellers, maps of the celestial bodies.
But what was all that guff at the beginning about tall slender children, grassy fields and sparkling rivers? Could this be the future for the descendants of those intrepid pioneers?
Why tall and slender? Well, the gravity on Mars is around a third of Earth gravity. If we’re not being pulled downward as strongly, we — and the flora and fauna — are likely to be taller. The first settlers will need to exercise — perhaps in specially-constructed high-gravity zones — to keep their hearts strong and their muscles from wasting. But along with all our other attributes, we’re adaptive. It may not take many generations before we become acclimatised.
What about the atmosphere? Mars doesn’t have much of one — just a wispy layer, a hundred times thinner than that of Earth, cold and lacking in oxygen. So why isn’t everyone walking around muffled in heavy coats — and how are they managing to breathe?
Mars has two moons — Phobos and Deimos. They’re not much to look at — like a couple of potatoes. Phobos is fourteen miles in length and Deimos is only eight miles long. Using a large robotic workforce, we could use the carbon, silicon and other materials from those moons to create clear hexagonal plates, almost invisibly seamed together and tessellating with one another like the cells of a honeycomb; enough plates to enclose the entire planet.
What’s the purpose of that? Firstly, it would keep in the atmosphere — stop it from drifting off into space. You could then add a nitrogen/oxygen/CO2 atmosphere — perhaps a little heavier on the CO2 to keep in the heat. The glassy plates around the planet would also have a greenhouse effect, melting the ice-caps and releasing pure water. You could even include solar lights in the panels to enhance daylight.
Once you’ve got all that in place and you’ve brought good soil bacteria from Earth to start things off, it’s not hard to imagine the first plants growing, spreading and greening up the world.
We’re not just curious, we’re imaginative — and once you’ve imagined something, you can work to make it come true. Amongst other technological advances, Gene Roddenberry imagined communicators, hand-held computers, replicators and face-to-face long-distance communication. And now what do we have? Mobile phones, tablets, 3-D printers and Zoom.
In my mind, it’s a certainty that we will land on the Red Planet. We will make it green and our children will evolve to be something other than human. As Ray Bradbury wrote in ‘The Martian Chronicles’ when the children asked where the Martians were; they were told to look into the lake — to see their reflections.
Our children will have forgotten Earth. They will be Martians.
