KEVIN JIA website manager
The Red Planet, otherwise known as Mars, has been the talk of the town for decades with NASA launching spacecrafts from Pathfinder in 1996 to Perseverance in 2020 and SpaceX preparing to launch the first crewed flight in 2026. However, the number of hazards displayed by previous generations of spacecraft, such as mechanical failures, has brought people to think: should we really land on Mars? Mars is 55 million kilometers away from Earth, at the minimum, and the distance increases as the Earth orbits around the sun. Thus, the journey between Earth to Mars would take around eight to nine months. Anything wrong can happen within that time frame: mechanical failure, starvation, freezing, or loss of oxygen. Even if the crew can make it, the conditions on the planet itself are harsh. Humans would have to be able to adapt to the change in their environment like temperature changes and lower gravity. It also comes with the risks of crop failure, global dust storms, or lethal doses of radiation. Mars also has a lack of natural resources needed to survive on the planet like toxic soil and water. Global dust storms carry small particles of dust at speeds ranging from 33 to 66 miles per hour. They can cover large areas for a few days but sometimes have been noted to cover up the entire planet for weeks nonstop. This is an extreme hazard against those who want to colonize Mars, because though the severity of the storms may not be extreme, the amount of dust accumulation and radiation from static electricity can pose a large threat.
The issu human exp
on mars Along with these hazardous conditions, the most common worry about landing on Mars is the lack of oxygen. The atmosphere on Mars carries little to no amounts of oxygen with over 95% of the atmosphere consisting of carbon dioxide and only 0.13% being oxygen. This would force those on the planet to wear space suits at all times or build a camp that provides a sustainable amount of oxygen for months until they can receive a new supply or produce enough on their own. If anything were to happen to the crew, sending out a rescue team from Earth would be more difficult than surviving on the planet. Communication between the two planets would take a long period of time as it ranges from five to twenty minutes depending on the orbit of both Earth and Mars. Sending out another spacecraft to rescue others would take even longer, as the crew, spaceship, and other resources would be needed to be found before liftoff with an additional eight to nine months.
20 | THE DESIGNED BY RAISSA JI 14 PROSPECTOR
Anything wrong can happen within that time frame: mechanical failrure, starvation, freezing, or loss of oxygen
