Holidays on Mars are just decades away...
The discovery of water on the Red Planet has mind-blowing implications
ONE question has fascinated the human race for more than a century: is there life on Mars? To scientists however, there was a more important query, for the answer to it would reveal not only whether life evolved on the Red Planet but also whether human colonists could survive there.
That question was: is there water on Mars? This week they got their answer
yes, water flows on the surface of Mars and that points to the existence of vast underground water reservoirs that could sustain human communities.
This is not speculation; the data is absolutely certain. The implications are colossal, and the biggest of all sounds like a science fiction plot . . . holidays on Mars.
If the human race does not perish in some self-inflicted cataclysm, I believe tourist trips to Mars are inevitable. To those who do not follow space exploration closely, this week’s announcement by Nasa that water had caused dark streaks on the planet’s surface may not have seemed significant. After all, ice had been found at the planet’s polar caps about ten years ago.
But the dry rivulet beds seen in the northern hemisphere prove that during the Martian summer, when the sun warms the high hillsides, water reservoirs below the surface start to flow. That has very different implications to the presence of ice, because where water runs, life can proliferate.
For a long time, scientists insisted that no life could flourish in the vacuum of space. The conditions were too harsh, too extreme. But an extraordinary accident during the Moon landings proved otherwise.
In 1966, the unmanned Surveyor 3 sent back thousands of images from the lunar surface but what no one realised at the time was that something even more fascinating was happening on the spacecraft itself.
During its construction, a Nasa technician had sneezed in the sterile lab environment. Germs passed through his protective gear and stuck to the spacecraft’s metal frame. These microbes survived blast-off, clung on across immense distances in space and then somehow thrived in the bleak, airless atmosphere of the Moon.
When studied under a microscope years later, the germs had evolved into minute barnacle-like organisms.
It seems there is no place in the universe that is too extreme for life. The Moon’s bone- dry, airless surface is an even more cruel environment than the toughest places on Earth where life has been discovered, such as deep in the Antarctic ice sheets.
So Mars, while a cold and inhospitable place, might actually be a fertile bed for new life or for old life that has never died. But for that, water is essential. Hence Nasa’s mantra on this project: ‘Follow the water’.
One possibility is that the Mars rover vehicles currently exploring the terrain could discover fossilised remains of primitive life or, more intriguingly, dormant life-forms that have been in a state of suspended animation perhaps for hundreds of millions of years.
SuCH a scenario is not unthinkable. According to current research, it is quite plausible. It is also hugely important to our understanding of ourselves, because one prevalent theory suggests life on Earth came here on a meteorite dislodged from the surface of Mars, perhaps by a comet strike, billions of years ago.
In other words, if astronauts based on Mars could examine fossils under the microscope, they might be looking at our most ancient ancestors.
The first scientific excitement over life on Mars began in 1877 with an Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, who saw dark lines on the planet’s surface that appeared to come and go with the seasons. Free-wheeling theories sprang up about these ‘canals’, the most popular being that these were irrigation channels dug by Martian farmers for their crops.
Sadly, there is no evidence of plant life — or farmers — anywhere on the planet and that means there cannot be big animals either, as sci-fi writers would love to believe.
The Victorian theories, while farfetched, did have a germ of truth. Those dark lines turned out to be dust, but the existence of oceans and rivers on Mars, billions of years ago, is beyond doubt.
For a long time, it was assumed that water would not be found on Mars because its immense distance from the sun — half as far again as Earth’s — meant temperatures never rose above 0c. However, Martian water has a high salt content, which means it can remain liquid even at minus-20c or colder.
Water cannot be transported to Mars from Earth as it is too heavy to transport substantial volumes through space. However, if it exists there in abundance, then it can be put to multiple uses. When purified, Martian water would be drinkable, in the same way seawater can be made drinkable, and so could meet a basic requirement for human survival.
Water can also be broken down into its constituent elements: hydrogen and oxygen. At very low temperatures, these can be stored compactly as liquids and then brought together in a process called ‘ reverse electrolysis’ to create electricity; vital for light, heat and scientific equipment.
So, by generating electricity from water, astronauts would not have to rely on solar panels.
On the Apollo spacecraft, the electrics were also cooled with pipes filled with water, like a domestic fridge.
Both hydrogen and oxygen can also be used for rocket fuel.
Fuel, air, hydration, electricity: all are made possible by the reservoirs on Mars. For the first time, human colonies on another planet do not seem a dream; they have become inevitable.
PROGRESS in the past 60 years is mindboggling. It is nothing like I imagined it would be when I was a boy, thrilled by science fiction serials on the radio and in comic books, but in some ways the reality of space exploration is even more thrilling.
There is no shortage of wealthy humans who agree. The internet billionaire Elon Musk, who cofounded PayPal, has been pouring his fortune into his SpaceX project, which provides the rockets for the International Space Station.
Musk is convinced he has designed the prototype for a spaceship that could take humans to Mars.
Rocket scientists calculate it will be a two-year trip; a nine-month outward journey, six months on Mars, and another nine months back.
Richard Branson’s scheme for space tourism shows a lamentable lack of imagination. People will not settle for a quick hop into orbit when they realise that a trip to Mars is possible.
With canyons deep enough to swallow the Himalayas and mountains five times the height of Kilimanjaro, the geography of the Red Planet is mind-blowing.
Who would not want to see that? It is the ultimate tourist dream and, within a few decades, perhaps a century, it will happen.
Thanks to the discovery of water, holidays on Mars are a certainty.
DAVID BAKER is now the editor of Spaceflight magazine.