The Mars Jolly

Back in the day when I was sent on a trip to visit a customer, supplier or to a meeting we called it 'going on a jolly'. There’s a lot of talk right now about sending people to Mars; a Mars Jolly. There’s even talk of making this a one way trip and not bringing them back. There’s no shortage of volunteers.

I’m interested in the motivations to send people to Mars and the reasons why we shouldn’t. A search of the web generates numerous sites supporting sending people to Mars and a number of sites taking the opposite view. In this article by Jessica Orwig in Business Insider she presents the most often quoted reasons to send people to Mars. (5 undeniable reasons humans need to colonize Mars — even though it's going to cost billions by Jessica Orwig, Business Insider, Apr. 21, 2015). The five reasons she presents are:

·         Ensuring the survival of our species

·         Discovering life on Mars

·         Improving the quality of life on Earth

·         Growing as a species

·         Demonstrating political and economic leadership

I'm not convinced by any of these reasons for going to Mars. I'm definitely unconvinced of the sense of colonizing Mars. Here's my reasons why.

Ensuring the survival of our species

It is highly likely than humankind will be killed off by some kind of global disaster in the not too distant future. Assuming that we avoid destroying ourselves, there are a number of likely disasters that could annihilate us. We could get hit by a large comet or asteroid just like the one that killed off the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. Alternatively one of the many candidate super-volcanoes could erupt just like the one that was responsible for the great dying 252 million years ago that wiped out over 90% of marine creatures and 70% of land creatures on our planet. Another dangerous event is the reversal of the planet’s magnetic field. These reversals happen randomly. Unfortunately they are also associated with a decrease in the magnetic field strength. There’s lots of speculation on what the effect might be on humanity during a reversal and field reduction. Most likely is that the reduction will allow an increased solar wind and cosmic ray flux on the surface. Absent SPF-1000 sun blocks for humans and animals this increased UV flux is likely to be very harmful, possibly fatal.

I have often heard the argument that we need to go to Mars to save humanity but I don’t believe it.  It sounds a bit like Scientology or some other neo-religious belief system is at work. What form of narcissism makes people think that humankind is unique or valuable in the universe. Unless you believe that humanity is unique then you must believe that life will exist in our universe whether humans exist or die out. Considering the huge expanse of the universe humankind is less than irrelevant. We shall live, we shall die out, and perhaps be replaced on our planet by something else, then our planet will be consumed by our sun and the universe will not give a damn or even notice.

Getting to Mars takes about 6 months assuming that the Earth and Mars are appropriately aligned. As soon as humans leave Earth orbit they are no longer protected by the Earth’s magnetic field. For humans to get to Mars they will have to survive this time while being bombarded by a high level of ionizing radiation from cosmic rays and the solar wind. Mars has no magnetic field and is therefore open to constant bombardment from cosmic rays so humans on the surface will be continuously exposed to cancer causing radiation. The only way to survive will be to go underground far enough to be shielded.

Since Mars is constantly bombarded by radiation nothing will grow on its surface, even if adequate water was available. Growing food will have to be done underground. Water will have to be fetched from the poles as ice, melted for water and electrolyzed to produce breathing oxygen and hydrogen fuel. This will require huge quantities of energy that can only be supplied by nuclear reactors.

2. Discovering life on Mars

I’m not at all convinced that it is necessary to send people to Mars to find evidence of life. For every manned mission to Mars I expect we could send more than ten unmanned missions for the same cost. In an age where artificial intelligence is developing fast I expect that unmanned Mars missions will both spur and benefit from AI. I also think that in this age of the risk averse one death in pursuit of this mission will close it down forever. Better to risk machines than people if only for the political optics.

If or when we discover life on Mars, what then? Shall we speculate that life on our planet was seeded by panspermia from Mars? It would seem that if this is the case we shall then wind ourselves around the axle wondering where life on Mars came from. Of could well be that life on Mars was and Earth was seeded from a common source outside our solar system. If on the other hand Mars DNA is fundamentally foreign to Earth DNA then we shall have to conclude that life began on both planets independently, or was seeded on these planets from different sources.

What then? Will the cost have been worth the effort? I recall that at the pinnacle of the Apollo program it was cancelled not least by an outpouring of claims that it was all too expensive and that the money should be spent on social welfare programs instead. Cancellation was also spurred by serious concerns about the safety of the Apollo missions and that the political objectives set out by President Kennedy of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth  had been achieved.

3. Improving the quality of life on Earth

In my opinion the argument that progress is only possible by the serendipitous cross fertilization of technology from a ‘wartime’ mission is at best a specious one. It is capitalism that has the track record of developing technology that improves the quality of life on Earth. Consider the development of the cellular telephone system with all its technology challenges, capitalization challenges and marketing challenges. All of this driven by public demand and not driven by government planning.

4. Growing as a species

It seems to me that our species has already grown too large to be comfortably accommodated on this planet. That may be the thinking behind the idea of transferring a significant portion of our population to Mars. Unfortunately life on Mars will be very restrictive and not at all like immigration to the Americas in the past.

Mars has a very small magnetic field that is incapable of protecting the surface from an avalanche of ionizing radiation that is incompatible with life as we know it. It might be possible to terraform Mars to support an atmosphere but it will not be possible to create a protective magnetic field.

Living on Mars will have to be subterranean to escape the deadly radiation on the surface. How living as a troglodyte on Mars will allow our species to grow is beyond my understanding.

5. Demonstrating political and economic leadership

This reason is way too silly to be taken seriously. Are we proposing that billions or trillions must be spent in travel to Mars in order that the USA be taken seriously? Why not demand that our elected officials behave seriously or better yet that our electorate vote only for serious people. It may not work but it will be much cheaper to find out.

 

In conclusion I find the reasons given for tripping to Mars are mostly silly. They seem to be spawned by some quasi-religious belief in the specialness of the human species within the universe. I disagree with this point of view. We are an example of life in a universe that is likely teeming with life. Our passing as a species will be little noticed by the universe at large which will continue to operate in its own way whether we are around to see it or not.