Why the idea of ​​colonizing Mars has nothing to do with reality

Science fiction writers thought about this at the beginning of the 20th century. Scientists launched the first programs at the beginning of the 21st century. And Elon Musk promised to make these dreams come true by 2022. All this is about human colonization of Mars – the closest planet to Earth in terms of distance, but very distant in terms of natural conditions. Scientists are still puzzling over technologies that could make staying on Mars a reality. But the idea itself, it seems, will not soon be brought to life.

The first Martians get ready

“Martians Wanted” – under such a bright NASA headline announced in mid-February about the recruitment of volunteers ready to take part in a simulation of life on the Red Planet. This will be the second training mission as part of the CHAPEA project in preparation for the first landing on Mars in human history, but when the landing itself will take place is still unknown.

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX more than 20 years ago, said in 2016 that the first human flight to Mars could happen in 2022. Then the billionaire said that by 2035 the entire journey will take no more than 80 days and will become quite commonplace.

Colonization of Mars, according to Musk’s calculations, should take only 40–100 years, during which about 10 thousand flights will be carried out. But in 2022, the flight to Mars did not take place.

So far, the company has been able to create its own launch vehicle and learned how to massively launch satellites and telecommunications equipment into Earth orbit. However, other projects that declared their goal to explore Mars, like Inspiration Mars or Mars One, cannot boast of this either. They closed without achieving anything.

NASA launched the Mars colonization project back in 2010. But unlike Elon Musk, scientists and engineers from the American space agency do not give specific deadlines for the development of the Red Planet. Even the name of the project hints at this – “Centenary Spaceship”. CHAPEA is one of the programs within this long-term and large-scale project. It was launched last year, and the first mission took off on June 26, 2023.

Mars in miniature

Teams of so-called colonizers went to NASA’s training facility to answer several critical questions. Can crew members eat the same, low-salt astronaut food for hundreds of days without losing their appetite, weight, or positive attitude? Can they survive in a confined space with strangers for such a long period of time? Will they be able to maintain the proper level of attitude towards their work and a friendly attitude towards each other when they do not have the opportunity to communicate with anyone else, even by radio, for 20 days in a row? In the end, won’t the first colonialists go crazy from such conditions?

As part of the mission, four carefully selected volunteers must live in a base of less than 160 square meters. m for 378 days. All this time, the four experimental colonizers will live together in complete isolation, and they will only be able to leave the futuristic-looking 3D-printed base to walk around the site simulating Mars. But unlike the real planet, the NASA base is not so spacious – the entire walking area covers an area of ​​111 square meters. m.

Participants in the experiment will have to cope with many stressful and emergency situations, live in conditions of an extremely limited supply of food, and communication with the outside world will be carried out with a long delay, as if there were really 55 million km between them and NASA scientists.

The goal of the CHAPEA experiment is not to accurately recreate the conditions on Mars and place people in them, but to understand how realistic this mission is. After all, the vast majority of scientists believe that the colonization of Mars will forever remain science fiction. And one of the reasons for the impossibility of such a mission is precisely the long-term isolation.

80 years of solitude

In fact, science has long had answers to these questions. And for supporters of the colonization of Mars, they are disappointing. Even with the most advanced developments, just one flight to the Red Planet will take six to eight months. There is no talk of returning the spaceship with the first settlers immediately to Earth.

Establishing a settlement on Mars, or at least preparatory work, will take months, or even years. And all this time, the first colonists will have to remain alone in an unfamiliar and extremely aggressive environment.

“Don’t we already know what isolation does to people? – quotes The New York Times JS Johnson-Schwartz, Ph.D.—Is there uncertainty about what would happen if you banned people from a room for a year? Just because a room is painted the colors of Mars doesn’t mean it will have any impact on the results of the study.”

Over 80 years of scientific research into the effects of isolation on humans, which began during World War II, dozens of experiments have been conducted. People were placed in caves, water tanks, iron lungs, and simply in small rooms. The US Air Force also conducted its own experiments before NASA was created in 1958. Moreover, these experiments were similar to CHAPEA. But no matter what the scientists came up with as test conditions, the result remained unchanged: first, the experimental subjects experienced a decrease in activity, then hallucinations. And none of these experiments lasted anywhere near as long as the would-be space travelers would have to spend alone on their flight to Mars and on the planet itself.

An unhealthy mind in an unhealthy body

According to neuroscientist Rachel Seidler of the University of Florida, most people today simply don’t realize how difficult it will be to settle on Mars, much less maintain a colony on the Red Planet: “People like to be optimistic about the idea of ​​colonizing Mars. Many people approach this issue with the belief that we shouldn’t restrict ourselves for practical reasons, but I agree that there are many potential negative physiological consequences.”

In addition to the psychological problems, such expeditions actually have a lot of possible negative physiological consequences.

Mars is not just another planet. It is extremely hostile to the human body.

These include constant temperature fluctuations, from a quite acceptable +30 degrees Celsius to -153 degrees. And the atmospheric pressure is 100 times lower than Earth’s, and the density of the atmosphere itself is only 0.7% of Earth’s, which means that it is not capable of protecting inhabitants from cosmic and solar radiation. And it will most likely cause irreparable damage to the body of the colonists during the flight to Mars. Scientists have not yet created a protective capsule or suit against radiation during flight and on the planet itself. Finally, there is the absence of any gravity during a multi-month flight, and the force of gravity on Mars itself is only 0.38 g. Astronauts typically need more than two years to recover after an 8-month stay on the International Space Station. This is a disruption of the vestibular system, and problems with the cardiovascular system due to overload, and the musculoskeletal system due to the lack of any stress. What consequences a longer stay in space will have on the body is unknown to science.

“I question whether these simulation experiments have any scientific value at all,” says Jeffrey Mathias, a professor at Cornell University who studies the history of human isolation experiments. He sees the CHAPEA mission as “a way to realize the desire to colonize Mars. A form of wish fulfillment – or cosplay, to put it less poetically. It’s about satisfying desire. There seems to be an overwhelming urge to keep repeating these fake missions to Mars until we actually make it. There’s something very beautiful, but also very creepy, about this idea.”

Kirill Sarkhanyants