Living on Mars?
By Malcolm Mungo
Have you ever wanted to live on Mars? Chances are, you have. Mars is a super cool planet, and it would be super awesome to live on a planet other than Earth. Although it may be an epic planet, its climate is very harsh and cold, with almost no oxygen. So forget about living there…unless?
Once we get to Mars we may actually be able to start a civilization built on martian soil. Aside from living in glass domes up there, there may actually be a way to live on Mars without life-sustaining equipment. How is this possible though?
Well, in 6th grade, we all did a massive project on Mars. This project is called Marzilization and 6th graders will be tackling this project towards the middle of the year I learned a lot about how to sustain life up there.
For this project I was assigned a question I had to answer - Is it possible to terraform Mars? In other words, can we make Mars livable?
Process of making Mars livable - Image from Wikipedia.
If you didn’t already know, Mars has tons of carbon dioxide and water stored underneath it’s surface. If we can tap into these resources, we could possibly create a habitable environment. First, we would have to grow plants using the CO2 in the crust of the planet. The plants will thus release O2, giving the planet breathable air, and slowly warming the planet (Mars is super cold, and oxygen is a greenhouse gas, which traps heat, so that will help warm the atmosphere).
But we still have one problem: Mars has no magnetic field. Why is this a problem? Well, without a magnetic field, the solar wind will be able to penetrate the atmosphere, and slowly kill any life forms on the planet, oxygen or not. Well, how do we overcome this? We make an artificial magnetic field. How do we make the artificial magnetic field? Many Worlds has something to say about it. “The shield structure would consist of a large dipole—a closed electric circuit powerful enough to generate an artificial magnetic field.” It sounds complicated, but it’s basically a giant electromagnet.
If we somehow find a way to actually build this massive electromagnet, then we can start building our martian empire. We could start using the carbon dioxide and the water under the surface to grow plants. Those plants will start producing that sweet, sweet oxygen. Once we have enough oxygen in the atmosphere, we just wait for the temperature to rise, then we’re golden! It will probably still be a bit on the chilly side, considering the fact that the average temperature on Mars before we changed it was -80 degrees celsius. But this is all theoretical, anyways. There’s no telling if we will even make it to Mars in the first place. So don’t get your hopes up - not yet at least.
Have you ever wanted to live on Mars? Chances are, you have. Mars is a super cool planet, and it would be super awesome to live on a planet other than Earth. Although it may be an epic planet, its climate is very harsh and cold, with almost no oxygen. So forget about living there…unless?
Once we get to Mars we may actually be able to start a civilization built on martian soil. Aside from living in glass domes up there, there may actually be a way to live on Mars without life-sustaining equipment. How is this possible though?
Well, in 6th grade, we all did a massive project on Mars. This project is called Marzilization and 6th graders will be tackling this project towards the middle of the year I learned a lot about how to sustain life up there.
For this project I was assigned a question I had to answer - Is it possible to terraform Mars? In other words, can we make Mars livable?
Process of making Mars livable - Image from Wikipedia.
If you didn’t already know, Mars has tons of carbon dioxide and water stored underneath it’s surface. If we can tap into these resources, we could possibly create a habitable environment. First, we would have to grow plants using the CO2 in the crust of the planet. The plants will thus release O2, giving the planet breathable air, and slowly warming the planet (Mars is super cold, and oxygen is a greenhouse gas, which traps heat, so that will help warm the atmosphere).
But we still have one problem: Mars has no magnetic field. Why is this a problem? Well, without a magnetic field, the solar wind will be able to penetrate the atmosphere, and slowly kill any life forms on the planet, oxygen or not. Well, how do we overcome this? We make an artificial magnetic field. How do we make the artificial magnetic field? Many Worlds has something to say about it. “The shield structure would consist of a large dipole—a closed electric circuit powerful enough to generate an artificial magnetic field.” It sounds complicated, but it’s basically a giant electromagnet.
If we somehow find a way to actually build this massive electromagnet, then we can start building our martian empire. We could start using the carbon dioxide and the water under the surface to grow plants. Those plants will start producing that sweet, sweet oxygen. Once we have enough oxygen in the atmosphere, we just wait for the temperature to rise, then we’re golden! It will probably still be a bit on the chilly side, considering the fact that the average temperature on Mars before we changed it was -80 degrees celsius. But this is all theoretical, anyways. There’s no telling if we will even make it to Mars in the first place. So don’t get your hopes up - not yet at least.
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