• Question: Can humans live in mars?

    Asked by WoofWoof to Steven, Sarah, Lidunka, Jillian, Connor on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Probably! There are a lot of problems with living on Mars. The constant radiation from the Sun wouldn’t be blocked by an atmosphere on Mars (because it has no atmosphere!), so we’d need to live in radiation-proof buildings.

      The lower gravity could be problematic too – the gravity on Mars is less than half of what it is here on Earth, and if a human spends too long in low gravity, their muscles stop working as well and their eyesight starts to get worse. At the very least, after too long on Mars, someone wouldn’t be able to come back to Earth again afterwards, since their heart wouldn’t be strong enough to pump blood against the pull of Earth’s gravity!

      But assuming they didn’t stay on Mars for too long, or they made sure to spend several hours per day exercising, it should be possible for humans to survive there. We won’t know for sure until we try!

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Not yet. As Steven mentioned, there’s a radiation problem, but in principle we could build underground, or even in the old lava tubes near the extinct volcanoes. The gravity on Mars is weaker, but the astronauts on the International Space Station are able to live in microgravity for a year at a time without too much trouble – they do have to be careful to exercise properly, though! With the stronger gravity on Mars (relative to the ISS) it might be less damaging to the astronaut’s bodies.

      Another problem we’re going to run into is that the dust on Mars is going to be extremely toxic to us. It seems that the dust is very alkaline, so if you get it in your lungs, it will burn you like bleach. So you’d have to be very, very careful to not bring any inside with you, whcih might be really hard, especially if it’s inclined to cling to you via static. We also need a good way of getting water, which we don’t have right now – it’s hard to ship water because it weighs so much.

      So we’ll probably get there, but we need huge improvements in technology first.

    • Photo: Sarah Beasley

      Sarah Beasley answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Have you seen the ‘Mars One’ mission? They’re aiming to send humans on a one-way trip to Mars in something like 2025. Basically because we reckon we can get humans there, but not back again! They’re shortlisting candidates at the moment but the aim of the project is to see if we could live there eventually…

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