Top 5 skills & technologies for colonizing Mars

Many are fixated on the red planet. Which technologies are poised to help us live there?

Published in

Welded Thoughts

6 min readJun 25, 2019

The colonization of Mars — and through this, the transformation of humans into a multi-planetary species — will be crucial to prevent human extinction on a long enough timeline; but colonizing Mars will be difficult. Extremely difficult.

If no breathable air, blisteringly cold temperatures, and solar radiation aren’t enough to put you off, here are the top 5 technologies and skills that will help our race — in its race — to tame the planetary incarnation of the God of War.

Tunneling

Mars has an atmosphere that is less than 1% as dense as Earth’s — and it is almost entirely (96%) made up of CO₂. This means that whatever we build on Mars needs to be pressurized and filled with on artificial ‘air’ that we can breathe. These structures, being highly pressurized, will thus have to handle this high pressure between the inside and the outside—walls and corners will be a big no-no as these will serve as weak points. the solution? Spherical and cylindrical structures, and…tunnels!

GIF of a Tunnel Boring Machine in action

Not only will tunnels be able to handle the pressure we are talking about here, but they will also solve some other problems too; as Mars lacks the extensive magnetosphere and dense atmosphere that we enjoy here on Earth, a person standing on the surface of Mars would be subjected to 50 times the radiation that they would be on the surface of Earth. Anyone who has seen HBO and Sky UK’s recent historical drama series ‘Chernobyl’ will know that this kind of radiation is certainly not fun — and can increase cancer risks significantly.

But no fear! The layers of dirt above the tunnels will serve to prevent most of the radiation.

It is perhaps no wonder that Mr. Musk decided to found tunnel construction company ‘The Boring Company’ in 2016.

Nuclear Energy

A significant problem we will encounter on Mars is that — compared to Earth — the planet is actually very energy poor. There are no fossil fuels, nor opportunities for hydropower, and because of Mars’ cold interior, Geothermal is also infeasible.

Martian solar power is simply not as effective (roughly 40–50% when compared to Earth). This is chiefly because Mars is further away from the sun than Earth is. Mars’ infamous dust storms (which can last for many weeks) also do not lend themselves to solar power very well.

Distances of Both Earth and Mars to the Sun. Not To Scale ;)

With such a low-density atmosphere, Martian wind power also seems to be a bit of a non-starter — although wind could viably generate power due to high-velocity winds (and higher densities due to the dust in dust storms), this would mean reinventing wind power for a Martian climate and would be an enormously expensive endeavor considering that there are simply better alternatives. Hydrogen? Maybe. Methane? Potentially, yes, but namely…nuclear power.

But if we were to go nuclear, both the reactor and the fuel needs to be brought from Earth. This would mean that a large amount of the engineering would need to be done on Earth, but military-grade reactors (which could provide power for 20 years) are relatively compact and could be whisked off to Mars and ready to go; establishing a Martian power station could be a case of simply ‘getting it there and turning it on’.

Now make no mistake, building Nuclear Power stations on Mars will definitely not be easy — and there are still several problems to solve; actually getting the reactor there for one, and then finding something to use as a coolant. Nuclear professionals of all sorts will be in hot demand.

Hydroponics & Aquaponics

Okay, so now we’ve sorted out where we are going to live (tunnels, round objects) and how we are going to make energy (nuclear power) — but what on Earth (erm.. Mars) are we going to eat!?

Mars soil is filled with toxic perchlorate salts — constant exposure to which could prove deadly. Growing food would also be difficult as mars soils are quite alkaline, and lack the vital nitrogen compounds that plants need to grow. If this weren't enough, we’d again have to deal with the less than perfect amounts of sunlight we’d be getting. Who got time to experiment for years with different crops? We’re trying to build a colony here!

The solution would be to grow crops in artificial environments using hydroponics.

Hydroponics refers to a system in which plants are grown in growth media other than natural soil. All the nutrients are dissolved in the irrigation water — and are supplied at a regular basis to the plants.

Photosynthesis could be enabled using artificial lighting, and we could allow our settlers some delicious fish too — fish can be bred symbiotically, and very successfully, in tandem with hydroponic vegetables. This is known as aquaponics.

Plants and Fish Grown Together Using Aquaponics

Those with green thumbs, you may find future Mars colonies to be very wanting of your skills.

Geology

Understanding Mars’ geology is of paramount importance; it is, in fact, goal number 3 on NASA’s list to ‘understand the origin and evolution of Mars as a geological system’.

Practically speaking, one of the chief things the first Martian colonies will be doing is prospecting the ground and drilling for water/ice. And it does help to know where to dig.

Geologists, mining engineers, and soil scientists will thus be in hot demand on the red planet — and anyone with skills in resource geology, environmental science, or water treatment will also be eagerly taken aboard.

General MacGyver-ey

Because most of the design and engineering work will be done here on Earth — with most intricate equipment being built here — many of the first Martian colonizers will be doing backbreaking manual labor, struggling to grow enough food to feed themselves, all the while trying to stay sane in this red, cold, radioactive desert (where breathing is impossible, and the ground itself is toxic).

With this in mind, it is not difficult to imagine that general MacGyver-like survival skills — accompanied by grit and strong psychology — will be essential to every person that embarks upon this treacherous, admirable undertaking.

Colonizing Mars will be the most difficult thing we have ever done — but then again, so was the last most-difficult thing we have ever done.

And that's all folks, I hope you enjoyed this article — I really enjoyed doing the research and writing it. I have put all of the references that I’ve used below. I would particularly like to mention Kurzgesagt’s youtube video on the subject. Give them a follow for some great content. All the best!