Terraforming Mars

- Hey, Kim! Wouldn't it be fun to live on Mars? - I’m not so sure… Why? - I think it’d be cool to settle on another planet! The idea of living on Mars might seem quite exciting at first. Mars is relatively close to Earth — the journey would take less than a year. And similar to Earth, Mars is at a safe distance from the Sun, has an atmosphere, and has water both on and under the surface.

It’s all very promising! But in other ways, Mars is very different from our planet. If you were to travel to Mars, you’d quickly notice that you can’t breathe Martian “air”. That's because there is practically no oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere! Not only that, Mars' atmosphere is very thin - on Mars there's only around 1% of the atmosphere there is on Earth.

Such a thin atmosphere doesn’t hold much of the Sun’s energy, so Mars is very cold. Without a special space suit you would quickly freeze to death. The thin atmosphere isn’t enough to protect the planet from solar winds and cosmic radiation either, which makes Mars a rather dangerous place. If we ever decided to live on Mars, we would need to overcome these challenges. One solution could be to build sheltered cities, underground or under specially constructed domes.

Inside, we could create artificial conditions that would allow us to carry on with our lives. But a walk outside without a space suit would still be impossible… Unless we change the whole atmosphere on Mars! If we could transform Mars’ hostile environment, so that it resembles the environment on Earth, the planet would become much more suitable for living! Scientists call such a process terraforming. To terraform Mars, we would first need to trap the Sun's energy closer to the planet, to stabilise the temperature.

This would require releasing large quantities of gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour, so they could trap heat. This would create a greenhouse effect. But how exactly could this be done? There are a few options. One includes vaporizing frozen water and carbon dioxide from the polar caps on Mars.

This might be enough to kickstart the greenhouse effect, but probably wouldn’t be enough to keep going. Another option is redirecting thousands of comets to hit Mars. Comets would bring water, oxygen and other minerals useful in restoring the atmosphere. This option, however, seems quite dangerous. If aimed incorrectly, a comet could miss Mars and hit Earth.

Some scientists are also thinking about extracting elements from Martian soil and turning them into greenhouse gases inside robot-operated factories. But we don’t have the technology to do that yet. Even if we somehow manage to release enough gases to form a suitable atmosphere on Mars, the lower gravity and lack of strong magnetic field would probably cause the newly created atmosphere to be stripped away. We would need something to keep the atmosphere in place. Now, even if that were achieved, there would be other long-term issues for humans to worry about — such as food supply and health.

Exposure to cosmic radiation, lower gravity, or a slightly different atmosphere would most certainly have effect on the human body, as well as on plants or animals we were to bring with us. Most ideas we have about terraforming Mars remain a fantasy for now. This fantasy might come true one day, but it won’t be for many years. - Eeehm, I guess I’ll stay here and watch some sci-fi videos, until someone figures it out.