How about a vacation on Mars? I am excited about humans being able to go to Mars, especially the notion of us becoming extra planetary. It is also an endeavour that can unify us as a people where perhaps we can make Mars a race and religion free zone. If you think about it race and religious culture is primarily build on history and locations on Earth that may not be practical to export to Mars. Anyhow the discussion of how we might populate Mars is still at least a century away in technology–I think we are about a decade away from sending an international team of astronauts, but as The Martian depicts it Mars is far from hospitable to life as we know it here on Earth. It is however a planet that can be Terra-formed, or made Earth-like; the tech and machines needed to condition Mars to mirror Earth is certainly within our means and it can be useful to us now to keep our amazing planet from becoming less hospitable to us.
What is Mars like compared to Earth?
Gravity: A bit less than half of Earth, more specifically 0.375 Earth's gravity. So things are lots lighter on Mars. Mars is almost exactly half the size of Earth.
Atmospheric pressure: Mars has very light atmospheric pressure which is variable across the planet and is calculated as a planetary average of about 1/1000 of Earth's very stable 1 atmosphere. Mars' air is mainly carbon dioxide with a little nitrogen and very little oxygen, still it has the ingredients to support plant life in a green house which can eventually change the balance of atmospheric composition towards more oxygen and less carbon dioxide. In fact to Terra form Mars we can export our CO2 and fossil fuels to Mars. Machines in combination with plants can use the byproducts of burning fossil fuels for energy in Mars to increase the volume and types of gasses in Mars' atmosphere to become Earth like. Perhaps we should reserve our current reserves of fossil fuels on Earth for Terra forming Mars!
Average Temprature: Another big difference between Mars and Earth. Average temperature of Earth is 14 degrees Celsius, Mars is at super deep freeze -(minus)63 degrees Celsius. However the average temperature on Mars could go up significantly if we pumped greenhouse gasses into its atmosphere! We need global warming on Mars not Earth! I think its time we stopped the global warming experiment on Earth, we now know it works.
Length of the Year: The Mars year is about twice that of Earth. Earth at 365 and Mars–687 Earth days. However Mars has almost similar day length to Earth at 24 hours and 37 minutes and its tilt at its axis is 25 degrees whereas Earth is 23.45 degrees. So there are seasons and differing climatic zones in Mars as on Earth.
I got all these comparisons from the Phoenix Mars Mission website. Here's the link.
Its good that the US and Europe have been at the frontier of Mars exploration since the 70's. If the West continue to hold the monopoly of information on Mars than at least we know universality will be a consideration of human ambitions on Mars. As the interest grows in Mars especially with the discovery of liquid water pointing to a possible subterranean source the Mars race is about to begin. China and Russia will not want to be left out especially since India has successfully sent a probe to Mars. Hopefully this endeavour will unify us and bring us into a new era of international ambitions.
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