My articles from 2021

Will Humans ever live on mars

note(from 2021 this one aged pretty well)

For years, scientists have been trying to answer this question: Will humans ever live on Mars?

Living on Mars has been an interest for space agencies around the world, and there are a few things to worry about: isolation of water and food, low gravity, toxic soil, Mars' distance from earth, freezing temperatures, and the radiation dust storms just to name a few. But, if possible, we could decrease the chance of dying with more research about its environment and useful inventions.

The most recent commitments to researching permanent settlement include those by public space agencies, and the United Arab Emirates—and private organizations.

Here are some facts about the environment on Mars, it's rocky and the G-Force is 0.4, which means low gravity. The Water on Mars is scarce, with rovers and finding less than there is in Earth's driest desert. It's relatively cool with an average annual temperature of -60 degrees Celsius, but Mars lacks an Earth-like atmospheric pressure. Upon stepping on Mars' surface, you could probably survive for around two minutes before your organs ruptured.

The first step to living on Mars is being able to make it there. The average distance from Earth to Mars is around 140 million miles and the trip currently takes between six and eight months to complete. Transport to Mars would have to sustain a small to medium group of people for that duration, for the time that they're on Mars, and for the return journey.

The longer the journey, the more expensive, difficult, and dangerous the journey is. Fuel, life support systems, and food must all last this duration. So, to make the trip quicker, NASA is working on more effective propulsion systems—which use nuclear thermal propulsion.

Nuclear thermal propulsion provides twice the efficiency of current technology. Propellant-like liquid hydrogen is heated up via a nuclear reactor. As the hydrogen is converted into gas, it provides thrust via a nozzle, propelling the spacecraft.

To have sustainable food supplies, humans have to invent creative ways to deal with the problem. Scientists have proposed some interesting ideas.

Cellular Agriculture
The way it works is that you take cells from an animal and put the cells in a nutrient-rich solution. This could be done in a big stainless tank. It works more like brewing beer than farming. It's a scaffold, giving it the texture of meat. But the whole point of using it is that it's much more sustainable than using animal protein and it does not evolve questionable ethics.

Insect Diet

It might sound gross but this is a very sustainable way of farming food. They have a lot more iron than beef and a high level of protein, and you also might need to turn to a mostly plant-based diet to survive on Mars. However, if you're a vegan or a vegetarian do not go to Mars, eating insects means eating animals, and you're very likely to need to eat them to survive on Mars.

The conclusion

My conclusion is that we might live on Mars someday but for now we are still advancing to that point.

But someday it might be possible, only time will tell...