
How far is humankind from establishing the first colony in deep space? After doing some research, evidence suggests it is not a matter of our capacity as a species, given that the technology necessary to do so is, in its vast majority, already available to us; in fact, we have reached a point where the major concern is not if it will happen but rather when it will happen. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and one of the biggest thinkers of our era, believes that humanity will be ready for its first trip to the red planet soon (Romero 2016). His company, which is currently leading the race to Mars and is also the biggest aerospace private company, has promised to launch its first rocket to the neighbouring planet in 2022, with a cargo of one hundred people (Romero 2016). Musk asserts that the colony needs to have at least one million people, a feat that could take up to one century to accomplish (Romero 2016). However, he does not lose faith in the project. 

Journalist, writer, and TED speaker Stephen Petranek gave a TED talk in 2016 titled “Your Kids Might Live on Mars. Here’s How They’ll Survive.” The idea of children who are currently in elementary school fantasizing about a life on Mars might seem a little over the top, but it is exactly what is happening according to him (Petranek 2015). Petranek is also optimistic about the future of the human species regarding space colonization and he admits that after a conversation with SpaceX’s CEO, he believes NASA will not bother sending a rocket to Mars in 2040 (as the space agency assures they will), since we will have landed on the Red Planet by 2027 (Petranek 2015). 

When talking about space exploration and colonization, there are some key topics or questions that need to be addressed in order to create a solid general idea of our standing on the matter as a humankind. These interrogations include: how will humans leave the home planet in the first place? How will human species strive in a dry planet with lack of oxygen? Where will colonists live in such a hostile environment and what will they wear in such harsh conditions to survive? What are the key steps that are necessary to transform a hostile environment, unknown to our evolutionary history of life, into a welcoming place like Earth? And finally, who will govern this new territory and how will problems between parties be solved? In addition, it is important to recognize what are some of the arguments that could potentially keep us from exploring further into space and analyze why is it important to do so. In this paper, they key ideas will be addressed to form a solid overview of humanity’s current standing in the space industry. 

The first issue that should be addressed is: How will humans leave Earth? Lots of different sources have diverse opinions on this and give reasons to back up their arguments. It is estimated that Mars lays at a distance a thousand times greater than the moon (Petranek 2015). About 45 years ago, it took three days for the Apollo missions to reach our natural satellite, and the New Horizons probe did it in just over eight hours and thirty minutes without deaccelerating (Sharp 2013). Currently, in perfect conditions, it would take a spaceship about eight months (240 days) to get to Mars, and it would be able to do so every two years (Petranek 2015). During the International Aeronautics Congress held in Mexico last year, Elon Musk unveiled a video that shows how will the first landing in Mars look like, and he did it while talking about the plans SpaceX is preparing for this. Regarding the transportation itself, his company is preparing a rocket capable of generating approximately 127,800 kilonewtons of thrust and 200 kW of energy at a speed of 100,800 km/hour (a little over 62,634 mph) (Romero 2016). He says the rocket will be 122 meters (400 ft.) tall, and with all this power it will be able to make the trip to Mars in eighty days (Romero 2016). Another rocket in which the company is working on, is allegedly going to be 17 meters (56 ft.) in diameter and have the capacity of carrying between one and two hundred people to and from the Red Planet every 26 months (Romero 2016). This would be the biggest spaceship ever built (Romero 2016). 

However, our world’s current technology is not the only feasible option to get our species to the neighboring planet within our lifetime. Scientists at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX carried out an experiment testing the so called “impossible engine.” This engine, also called the EM Drive or Electromagnetic Drive, is one of the most promising engines in which scientists have put their efforts on making it work. The way this engine works is by bouncing microwaves inside a cone-shaped container to generate thrust (White et. al. 2016). Best news is, this sort of propulsion system could get any of us to Mars in just 70 days. However, this system defies Newton’s third law which states that everything must have an equal reaction in opposite direction. In other words, the EM Drive should expel something the opposite way and it doesn’t, and yet even though no one has sent this engine to space, every time it is tested in the lab it works. Regardless that it is still not 100% clear how this happens one thing is sure, the EM Drive passed peer reviews and it officially works, and it does more efficiently than some current engines do. 

Probably the most sci-fi sounding concept for space exploration is the one of the Solar Express. This concept comes from the fact that the biggest investment in rockets is the cost of acceleration and deacceleration, therefore, this train would run between planets non-stop (Bombardier 2016). It would be composed of 50 meter (164 ft.) capsules that would take both cargo and humans to and from other planets (Bombardier 2016). Every capsule would have to detach or attach from or to the train, while both train and capsule move, with the help of maintenance robots (Bombardier 2016). The Solar Express would take advantage of planet’s gravity and other celestial bodies to slingshot around them making a specific track (Bombardier 2016). The most appealing part of this concept is that it could take us to Mars at speeds of up to 3,000 km/hour (9,842 mph), which happens to be 1% the speed of light, and shorten trips to the neighboring planets making them only 37 hours long (Bombardier 2016). Even though this technology is not yet available for humans, if we consider technological development in the last decades, it will be interesting to see how the human species goes about developing new technologies such as this one in the next decades.  

Once humans have surpassed the barrier of their own planet, something perhaps even more concerning awaits ahead. Once the rocket lands on Mars, what will happen? Arrival into a deserted world won’t be easy, and the first problem that colonists will face is water. As everyone knows, water is the key ingredient (as far as human knowledge goes) for there to be life, and as many people know, Mars is an extremely dry place. What many people don’t know, is that Mars is a planet where water is relatively abundant, except for the fact that most of it is completely frozen in the poles and underground (Petranek 2015). About 60% of the Martian water can be found inches below the surface, and to give an idea, if the water in the poles melted there would be enough to submerge the whole planet (Petranek 2015). In addition, Mars is usually 100% humid and with recent advancements in biotechnology humans could extract enough moisture from the environment to produce water (Petranek 2015). 

The next immediate concern is oxygen. Just as important as water, without oxygen humans cannot strive. In the short term, MOXIE, a compact experimental model designed by a scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could be the answer. This model produces oxygen from the carbon dioxide found in the Martian atmosphere and it is estimated that it could provide enough oxygen for a single person to live in Mars indefinitely (NASA 2017). In the long term, the probable solution to this problem is the terraforming of the planet. 

After solving the issue about the oxygen, the colonists will also have to deal with starvation. While water is present in Mars, since it is all frozen there is no way it can naturally melt, making it into a cold dessert-like planet. Petranek estimates that once the first colonists are established, only about 15% to 20% of the food will be grown in Martian soil until humans manage to get running water in the planet (Petranek 2015). This, hopefully, will happen once the population gets closer to the one million mark, which is the number of people that we would need to call the martian colony “self-sufficient.” Unitl then, the rest of the food will have to be shipped from Earth and most of it will be dry (Petranek 2015). 

Another big challenge will be housing. For the first few years humans will not live above ground due to the radiation coming from cosmic rays (Petranek 2015). Due to the lack of atmosphere, these rays hit the Red Planet stronger than they do here on Earth, even though it is further away. One first option to deal with housing is to go underground, sheltering themselves in caves and lava tubes which are abundant in Martian geography (Petranek 2015). Another idea proposed is to use Martian soil and make it into bricks, which would serve as a good layer of insulation against cosmic rays (Petranek 2015). Going underground would mean encountering frozen water at shallow depths, however, this should not cause an issue given that even on Earth humans have lived in frozen caves and with the help of the technology it could be modified to sustain a human for long periods of times.

At a competition held by NASA the option of using recycled spaceship parts and loose material from the soil (regolith) to build houses was proposed (Gohd 2017). In this design, loose rocks and soil from the soil would be molten and then given shape to match the shelter (Gohd 2017). Each shape would have to be sprayed with a type of adhesive to make sure it is hermetic (Gohd 2017). This design also ensures the protection against the elements that range from “simple” sandstones to high-energy radiation (Gohd 2017). These houses would be built to exist both above and below the surface (Gohd 2017). 

Another popular idea in the competition was to send robots to pre-build shelters from regolith and 3D printed parts. In this case, regolith would be attached together using microwaves, which consequently would provide an extra barrier against the dangerous radiation (Gohd 2017). The design is made to accommodate a maximum of four adults and could exist both above or below ground (Gohd 2017).

The winning team proposed an idea of building shelters using an inflatable dome, 3D printed ice and a thin layer of regolith (Gohd 2017). What is especially appealing about this model is that it is designed in such a way that apart from providing the most protection from radiation, it would allow the resident to walk around without a space suit and even to grow plants (Gohd 2017). The best part, it is the only one that would be 100% above ground! 

All of the winning teams were sponsored by architectural firms and the winning idea came from one specialized in space architecture (Harbaugh 2015). The teams were formed by professionals in different areas such as engineering, astronomy, and material science, amongst others (Harbaugh 2015). 

Another fundamental problem that would have to be solved is the one related to clothing. What are humans in space going to wear? Dava Newman, professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems from MIT believes she has the solution. Here on Earth, every human carries on average 7 kg of pressure in their shoulders (about 15 pounds) due to the atmospheric pressure constantly pushing against us (Petranek 2015). However, due to the lack of atmosphere in Mars there barely is any pressure at all. Dr. Newman invented a spacesuit that in addition from keeping the human body together (i.e. preventing it from expanding and exploding due to the lack of pressure), it also keeps it warm and isolates it from the harmful cosmic and solar radiation (Chu 2014). 

One big key step that must be taken eventually is the terraforming of Mars. Terraforming is a concept used to describe the action of changing the environment of a celestial body to make it suitable to house life as it exists on Earth. Contrary of what many people think, the technology to achieve such a feat is not thousands or even hundreds of years into the future, but it has already been developed (Petranek 2015).  So, the first step to transform Mars into a welcoming earth-like planet is to warm it up. This does not have the sole purpose of making the temperatures of the planet to become more bearable but it will also mean that an atmosphere can start to form. As mentioned before, Mars has both of its poles covered in frozen carbon dioxide, also known as dry ice. If the planet was heated up just a little, the CO2 in the poles would sublime into the atmosphere, meaning it would go from a solid into a gas instantaneously without becoming a liquid. As humanity is aware by now, carbon dioxide is an extremely good insulator. According to Michio Kaku, Professor at New York University and one of the most influential people in science, by doing this, the carbon dioxide in the form of gas would be released into the atmosphere generating a greenhouse effect (Kaku 2011). With just a small amount of this gas in the atmosphere the temperature would rise just enough to heat up the most external layer of dry ice, causing it to sublime (Kaku 2011). As more carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere the planet does not only gets warmer but the protection against radiation will also increase (Kaku 2011). In addition, water vapor will start dissolving into the atmosphere too, until it gets to a point where rain and snow will fall down from the sky (Petranek 2015). Both of these elements together will make crops a feasible resource for food. Finally, when the atmosphere is thick enough, we will not only have more of an ideal temperature and protection from cosmic rays, but the pressure would be enough to allow us to survive without the space suit, since humans only need about 2.25 kg (5 lbs.) of pressure to survive (Petranek 2015). 

All this idea of making Mars like a second Earth might sound quite appealing to many space enthusiasts. However, the obvious question that arises is how will this happen? Mars’ weather forecast does not predict a sudden increment in its temperature in the foreseeable future. Then how will humans achieve this? According to Petranek and Dr. Kaku, the cheapest and most efficient way to do this is by focusing a giant solar sail to the Red Planet’s poles. Using solar energy, the pole would warm up and the greenhouse effect would start. Petranek says that this process could take less than twenty years using our species’ current technology. 

Unfortunately, both Michio Kaku and Petranek agree that making the atmosphere breathable could take up to a thousand years (Kaku 2011 and Petranek 2015). However, as Petranek puts it “we are on the very verge of being able to control our own genetics, what the genes in our bodies are doing and certainly, eventually, our own evolution.” There is no reason to believe that with humans striving on Mars, another well-adapted species of human will appear (Petranek 2015). Humanity could eventually end up with two different types of humans in two different planets, with different capabilities. For instance, while humans on Earth need an atmosphere of at least 20% oxygen, humans on Mars could evolve to lower their oxygen requirements and therefore not need as much as organisms on Earth do. The human race would be witnessing for the first time the existence of real Martians. Even though our species has a long way to go before Mars’ atmosphere is ready for current humans to breathe, people should know that for all of this to happen there has to be people willing to take the first steps, and anyone can be part of that group.  

After talking about all of these challenges humans must go through to become a spacefaring species, many might think that it seems surreal. But even so, all of this is not only possible, but probable. So, if the technology is available, what is holding humanity back? One answer is: politics. One of the major concerns is who will govern the newly inhabited planet? Sara Bruhns and Jacob Haqq-Misra, interns at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, present a model that does not only allow to keep things relatively simple politically and jurisdictionally speaking, but also complies with the Outer Space Treaty (OST) guidelines. This treaty contains a non-appropriation clause that prevents nations from claiming any celestial body or part of it as their own (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). This clause alone, makes it hard to dictate who will have authority over Martian soil. 

Bruhns and Haqq-Misra propose that “colonization parties,” whether they be from the private or public sector, may occupy a limited amount of Martian land and claim economic rights of the zone, without directly claiming the land their own property (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). Colonists will still be legally under the jurisdiction of the country they hold nationality from (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). This would make any conflict that may arise on Mars solvable through diplomatic means, they do not specify whether this would be solved through a local “National Government” in Mars or solved from Earth. However, clearly a National Government from each country would make things easier since the representative would understand the problems and outcomes of potential solutions in another planet, which could be significantly different from Earth. Another option from this could also be to create a tribunal system composed by representatives of other Mars colonies (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). They remark that between these two, not a decision of one or the other has to be made since both regulatory authorities could work together (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). Finally, they propose the creation of a Mars Secretariat, which will act as an administrative authority with limited power to serve as a facilitator in the communication between parties (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). They also suggest that even though their model complies with the current demands of the OST, the non-appropriation principle be revised to solve the question of how will parties and nations will be able to make use of the resources found on space (Bruhuns and Haqq-Misra 2016). 

  On the other hand, it is worth recognizing that for the space exploration industry to get this far, it has needed monetary resources that, in the case of America, come from federal budget. In an article written by Amitai Etzioni, CNN reporter, rants about this issue. “It is not going away [Mars]. We can send R2D2 to explore it…” he says. Etzioni takes advantage of James Cameron’s recent journey to the Mariana trench, the deepest point of the ocean, to make his case. He argues that space exploration consumes a lot of money that could be well used for other purposes, such as exploration of the ocean (Etzioni 2012). He asserts that the space industry insists in planning manned missions to deep space instead of taking advantage of the advancements in robotics to send more machines to carry out those missions (Etzioni 2012). At the end of the day, as Etzioni says himself “they [robots] can do most tasks humans can.” And that “most” is the answer to the inquiries he poses. While robots may even outperform humans in many tasks, by being far more precise, not getting tired and with all the advantages they have in contrast with biological systems like humans (no need to eat, sleep or protect themselves from radiation), they are and will always be brainless robots. While one of these machines might be able to recover information from space and run it through an immense preprogramed database containing all the facts it needs to know to analyze samples, robots are not able to create new information. By going to Mars and sending humans to physically land and explore has the advantage of having a reliable “machine” called human brain, with millions of years of improvements backing it up, to not only analyze and compare data but also with the ability to think and discover new sources of information, and recognize that what he has before his eyes might be something civilization has never seen before. On the opposite side, a robot with the same unknow sample might try to compare it to his previous preprogrammed knowledge (even if it has access to all information in the internet) it will try to approximate the sample to the most similar piece of information he can find, or else show an error. Guess who will be in Mars with him to realize it is not an error or something known but a completely new species found?

While it is true the development of the technology costs a large amount of money, the outcome of this goes beyond any number you can think of. The result of this missions is beyond priceless.

There is also another question: what if we thought about it the other way around? What if instead of thinking about the reasons for not colonizing deep space we thought about why we should? Have you thought about the risk of an undetected asteroid hitting the Earth and whipping humanity out of existence forever? At the beginning of this year, an asteroid was discovered just two days before it flew beside Earth at just half the distance between our planet and the moon (Chan 2017). Had the asteroid hit the planet, the results would’ve been catastrophic.

However, Etzioni does not lie. No, we are not taking enough care of our planet. Yes, we should be taking better care of home. And yes, there is the possibility of spoiling Mars as we have been doing with Earth so far. But in the other hand, why not see Mars as our second opportunity to do things right? If we were to colonize the planet, it would mean that the human species will strive in the universe no matter what, and most importantly, the current generation, no matter how many years you go into the future, will never be the last (Petranek 2015). Think of the time humans landed on the moon for the first time and the enormous consequences it brought, inspiring a whole new generation of children who today are making the dream of visiting Mars possible. Now imagine what such an achievement would mean to the rising generations, to our children, and think about what will they achieve when their time comes. 

Humanity is destined to explore, that’s what we have been doing since our earliest days. How far is humanity from establishing the first colony in space? Different experts have different opinions, you can make your own. One thing is sure: humans will leave the home planet, just as our ancestors left their land millions of years ago, and who knows what they might found out there. 
