For those who don’t delve in the news of space exploration, a mission to colonize Mars might seem like the plot of a B-rated ?sci-fi flick.
For those who do delve, you might know such a feat isn’t out of this world — or is, so to speak.
Mars One, a nonprofit organization, hopes to send the first ?Martians by 2024.
But is such a project even possible? I’m doubtful.
The Mars One project isn’t new.
According to the project’s website, the founding members of the nonprofit foundation met in 2011 to find a means of ?supporting human life ?on Mars.
In that year, experts from several aerospace organizations across the globe completed a feasibility study to discover whether Mars ?colonization was even ?possible.
They found that it was.
In 2013, Mars One launched its Astronaut ?Selection Program.
Four lucky people, two male and two female, would someday get the opportunity to be the first people to not only go to Mars, but to make the planet habitable.
The catch: It’s a one-way ticket.
But is the potential sacrifice of four people worth the chance to someday live ?on Mars?
On one hand, there’s no guarantee the launch would be safe, let alone surviving in the unknown Martian ?environment.
But on the other, there’s a chance to establish life on a planet that isn’t falling to decay and ruin — global warming is real, folks.
But before those ?questions can be ?addressed, we need to verify the authenticity of the Mars One ?feasibility report.
When it comes to feasibility, there are many ?unknown variables.
I don’t doubt we can send people to Mars, and I don’t doubt those people would walk on the surface of Mars, but this project’s expenditures would be ?astronomical.
Multiple shuttles would have to be built to transport the crew and tools necessary for the task.
We’d have to build fancy gadgets to terraform Mars and make it habitable.
Even more unbelievable is the idea that Mars is going to be colonized by four people.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was it built by four people.
Mars is going to need more.
Mars One does intend to send later crews, but who’s to say the first crew even lasts that long?
They’re placing too much pressure on the first crew by assuming the project is to get so far as to shipping off to Mars.
Such a project would be amazing and a commemoration to modern science and ?technology.
But it’s also an idealized notion created by people who are dreaming too big and too irrationally.
How can we even think of living on another planet when the one we’re living on right now needs us more than ever?
brieseymo@indiana.edu
