Travelling to Mars and attempting to live on its surface are magnificent examples of the courageous spirit of human exploration. The difficulty of this endeavour also strongly highlights the importance of getting it right as a species here on Earth.
Apart from the considerable technical challenges in getting to Mars (it’s a long and potentially hazardous journey for a start – about 7 months) and establishing a base, there will be significant challenges in the living conditions for the first settlers. One of the shortlisted candidates for the proposed Mars One mission recently described it as “setting up camp as a subsistence farmer in a remote corner of the universe”. That puts one perspective on it! She was still keen to go.
To better understand living on Mars, various experiments are being conducted here on Earth to simulate such conditions. A recent one is described in [1] where a group of 6 scientists successfully spent 8 months living in isolation in a dome on the slopes of a dormant volcano on Hawaii. On emerging for the first time without wearing a spacesuit at the end of the experiment, one scientist commented that she “felt like a ghost” and that it was awesome to again feel the sensation of wind on her skin. There was also mention of “watermelon”, “taking a swim”, “feeling the sun” – all simple pleasures here on Earth which will not be so easily experienced in such conditions.
Although such experiments provide some preparation and efforts are made to make these realistic, the environments of such tests are significantly more benign than they will be on Mars. On Mars, the atmosphere is not breathable. The oxygen level is only at 0.1% that of Earth. It’s generally very cold. Even at the equator, the average high is below 0 deg C and average low about -80 deg C. The atmospheric pressure is very low at only about 0.5% that of earth and water in the tear ducts, eyes, lungs etc. would boil away if unprotected by a space suit. As Mars does not have a global magnetic field or significant atmosphere to protect it as does Earth, there is intense radiation from cosmic rays and solar particles to contend with [2]. Outside, you might survive running perhaps 100 metres without oxygen and a space suit. Might. Then that would be it. There is also lots of dust (irritating rather than fatal!).
Perhaps we should make things easier by terraforming Mars first before colonising it to make it more human friendly / life friendly? Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company is boldly attempting to enable Mars colonisation, once famously described Mars as a “fixer-upper of a planet”! Sound like your kind of property investment? 🙂
Terraforming may indeed be possible in future and various studies have been performed on this. However, the most optimistic estimates put that as taking 1 000 years with more likely scenarios taking 100 000 years, if it proves possible at all. So, the bottom line is that living on Mars is likely to continue to be far more challenging than living in the harshest environment here on Earth for a very long time. If it is isolation, self-sufficiency and a new social order you are after, it is easier set up shop in some remote part of Antarctica or the Sahara or the bottom of some ocean.
We will go to Mars, however (barring some catastrophe). It is in the human spirit of exploration to do so. Getting there and being there will be truly mind expanding. Think of the conditions people willingly subjected themselves to in exploring the Earth. For the early seafarers there was sea-sickness, home-sickness, scurvy, shipwrecks, storms, little hope of recovery, communication that took way longer than messages to Mars, etc. Not easy, not comfortable, but we went and eventually, we prospered.
One cannot help but feel that, although becoming a multi-planet species provides some sort of insurance against extinction due to certain causes (e.g. asteroid impact, deadly flu virus), the most likely causes of human extinction come from within the human race itself, rather than external factors. Catastrophic human-induced climate change, bio-hazards, runaway computer systems, nuclear war, for example. Some of these hazards could easily be transmitted to Mars as well. Mars is far, but it only takes about 13 mins on average to transmit a message / computer virus.
It would seem that, in addition to these bold initiatives to extend the reach of the human race and provide some sort of physical insurance policy for the species we need in addition to undertake the more daunting inward journey to address the challenges of our conditioning and behaviour which are much more of a threat to human existence than any natural phenomenon. These are also the cause of many of our personal and collective problems.
Providing a physical insurance policy for the species is helpful at a level, but neglects the bigger issues which lie within us all. These need to be addressed more urgently, especially given the accessibility to- and the increasing reach of our powerful technology.
The inward journey is not easy to achieve as it requires the will and effort of individuals. Can we do this collectively as a species? Unlikely, but fortunately we do respond to the deeper wisdom that is within each of us when this is presented. So, if even a few make the effort, it can have a much wider positive effect. Nelson Mandela is an example of someone who undertook a significant inward journey while in prison and influenced the world.
The inward journey requires introspection: examining motives even with small things; likes and dislikes; not believing every thought that comes into one’s head; exercising and strengthening reason and compassion; putting aside time for quiet reflection; separating what one truly is from more superficial outer layers of human expression. These are all valuable. Once one decides to explore inwardly with sincere intent, help seems to appear: the right book; friend; whatever is needed. Each person can find what resonates with them and helps on their way, taking a step at a time. It can seem daunting, but is possible. There is an old story which illustrates that:
A man wanted to travel a long distance in the depth of night with only a small lantern to guide him. There was no moon visible and the darkness enveloped everything. He stood fearful at his door, unwilling to move. Then the realisation dawned that, with his small light, he could see the next step and that, after taking that step, the next step also became lit. And so, step by step, he safely completed his journey.
The inner journey can seem daunting at first as we are so used to looking outward rather than inward. However, just like the man with the lantern, we already have enough wisdom within us to take the next step and so, step by step we can proceed. The outward journey of exploring Mars is achieved in similar fashion. We take it step by step, building in capability and experience with each step. With this, we are building on centuries of scientific and technical progress, “standing on the shoulders of giants”.
When we start to make the inward journey, we start to re-open our eyes in a childlike (not childish) way to the wonder of the universe, we open more fully to the amazing ingenuity of the human species as explorers, we start to unlock the wisdom already within us and we start to get a sense of what it means to be both deeply human and also deeply connected to the universe. Is this not an inspiring future for the human race?
It starts with you. You can become an explorer too. To start, you only need yourself. You start from where you are. Go deeply inward, for the sake of all.
[1] http://phys.org/news/2015-06-scientists-emerge-isolated-dome-hawaii.html
[2] http://www.sci-news.com/space/science-mars-radiation-measurements-surface-01629.html
[This post is released under the terms of the Creative Commons “CC By 4.0″ license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Author: Jasper Horrell (@jasperhorrell)]
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Jasper Horrell 
Hi Jasper
What are your thoughts about the the fact that we have not nearly solved the human problem of poverty here on earth, but are willing to put huge amounts of fine mental energy and money into solving the technical problem of going to distant planets ?
Thanks, Mark
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I think we have more than enough capacity to do both; to do the big, bold inspiring explorations (I work on a project to build the world’s largest, most sensitive, radio telescope arrays, for example), but also to ensure that we put enough effort into sorting out basics like food distribution, for example. The world already produces enough food. It is a matter of distribution. If we really understood and cared at a deep level that food, healthcare, shelter, access to education for all were not intractable problems, but could be solved if we collectively really wanted to do it, then it could be done as humans are capable of great things. This problem is solvable now and will be only easier to do in future with better technology. What is preventing progress with this is not technology or resources, but people and their ideas. People know certain things and work within certain systems and are generally not keen to change unless it is forced on them or something becomes so blindingly obvious. The solution would seem to require a global approach and some changes in entrenched systems (particularly economic). Not all nations are prepared to see the global picture yet and act from that basis. Do we care enough about humanity as a whole to disrupt some of our economic systems to enable this to happen? I hope we get there, but we are not there yet. This related essay explores this a little: https://jasperhorrell.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/the-welfare-world-future-of-humanity/
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