EPISODE 43: COLONIZING MARSTHE QUESTION: How in the world are humans planning to colonize Mars within the next couple of decades? SYNOPSIS: This week, we look at a real-life scenario that has humans colonizing Mars within the next 20 years! We discuss:
The timeline of SpaceX launches, which begin in only four years from now, Who the first human Martians will be, Why Mars is the best and really ONLY choice for places humans can go, What "terraforming" means and how it will affect Mars, And a lot more.
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Click to open 043: Colonizing Mars On today’s episode of the How in the World Podcast, we answer the question: How in the world are humans planning to colonize Mars — within the next couple of decades? (Intro) M: OK, let us start with a couple of disclaimers. First, there are several different plans floating around out there to colonize Mars, so we had to settle on one. This plan was given to us by a good friend who worked at SpaceX for years and who was responsible for the propulsion systems of several of the rockets. In other words, he was…a rocket scientist. This guy has since retired to travel the world, but he is still very smart and keeping close tabs on the program, so I felt like the plan he turned us on to was a safe way to go. But again, this is only ONE possible scenario out of, I’m sure, hundreds. And yes, I know it sounds like science fiction, but it’s actually not. H: Right. And the second disclaimer is, this will be a VERY dumbed down version of the plan because, A) it needs to be so that WE can understand it, and B) to describe it in great detail would take much longer than we usually run on this podcast. M: Yes, this will be the Cliff Notes version. H: But nonetheless very cool and exciting. M: Absolutely. H: And because, honey, you are the official space nerd in the family who knows the entire history of the space program by heart, and who has seen every space documentary and feature film several times each, and who cries at the end of “The Right Stuff” every time, you will be taking the lead on this episode. Just consider me to be the Ed MacMahon to your Johnny Carson. M: Well, OK. This is wild, wacky stuff. H: OK, I didn’t say to actually impersonate Johnny Carson. M: Got it. Sorry. OK, so we should first address the question of why Mars? Why not some other planet in our solar system? This one is fairly straightforward. There are really only two options of other places in our solar system where humans could go to colonize: Mars and the moon. H: Why not the other planets? M: Well, the short answer to that is, none of the others could be habitable, even on their best days. Mercury and Venus, the two planets closer to the sun than us, are just too hot, among other things. And once you get beyond Mars, which is one planet further away from the sun from us, those other planets are either too cold or they are made up primarily of gases. H: So, it would be like trying to live on a cloud? M: Pretty much so, yes. But a very terrible, poisonous cloud that is trying to kill you. H: I don’t like the sound of that. M: Nope. H: But what about the Moon? Why don’t we colonize the moon first, if we’re so hell-bent on colonizing another planet? M: Good question, and I’ve had the same thought. I recently read an article on the National Space Society website that provided this analogy, which I thought made a lot of sense: Back in the days of Columbus — the age of exploration, some people call it — Europe was kind of the Earth of today. It’s where most “first-world” people lived. H: OK. M: Europeans were trying to explore unknown parts of the world that they could colonize. So, compare the moon to Greenland and Mars to North America.