The Allure Of Mars: Making Humans An Inter-Planetary Species

Of all the planets in our solar system, Mars has been the biggest subject of science-fiction movies and has captivated the interest of billionaires like Elon Musk and Richard Branson. What exactly is the appeal of the Red Planet and what hope does it hold for the future of humankind?

The idea of humans living on Mars may seem today to be what used to be called a ‘moon shot’ – an awesome, fantastic, almost impossible to achieve endeavor – until humans actually walked on Luna. And it all starts with unmanned spacecraft mapping the surface, atmosphere, climate, composition, and a myriad other aspects of the Red Planet, culminating in building human settlements on Mars.

Many plans are announced each year related to missions and settlements on Mars. Culling the chaff from the wheat leaves, here are a few credible paths that may realistically take humanity there.

In November 2013, India launched the space probe Mangalyaan – literally translating to ‘Mars vehicle’ – which entered the Red Planet’s orbit in September 2014 and is still there, gathering data. Although the Indian Space Research Organization has announced no plans to build settlements there, India’s space program has the capability.

After landing the Mars rover Curiosity in 2012, US space agency NASA in October 2015 made public a plan to establish permanent settlements there using ‘deep-space habitation facilities’ as stepping stones to a fully-fledged colony on the planet.

In September 2016, SpaceX Founder and CEO, Elon Musk published a plan on ‘Making Humanity a Multi-Planetary Species’ that involves re-usable spaceships that will depart Earth en masse once every 26 months when it aligns with Mars, each carrying a hundred people and cargo. SpaceX has launched multiple rockets so far, including Falcon Heavy, a partially re-usable heavy-lift vehicle.

In February 2017, on the sidelines of the World Government Summit in Dubai, the UAE announced that it would build a city on Mars by 2117, and even released images of what the city would look like. The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center is working to achieve clearly defined goals.

China’s ambitious mission to create a robotic and human settlement on Mars in 2020 are “going smoothly”, Zhang Rongqiao, the chief architect of the mission, said in September 2017. China is seeking to become the first country to conduct joint orbital and surface exploration of Mars in a single mission.

Long before all of this comes to fruition, government and private sector organizations from the United States to the UAE to India will send tens of unmanned and manned craft into orbit around Mars to gather as much relevant information as possible.