Physics: Is it possible to live on Mars?

Note: The following article was written by Hasan Shahrestani Year 9.

One Saturday, you wake up on Mars, and instead of seeing roads, trees or cars out your window, you just see acres and acres of crimson wasteland. You step outside, but you are unable to breathe.

This is Mars.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and has two smaller moons, unlike Earth which only has one. Earth is known to be majority water, which is why life can thrive, however, scientists have found evidence that Mars once had liquid water on its surface, meaning that living organisms might’ve inhabited the deserts of Mars.

A year on Mars is equivalent to 687 days on earth and each day is called a ‘sol’ lasting about 24 hours and 39 minutes. Mars is also home to the largest volcano in the entire solar system — Olympus Mons — which is almost 3 times the height of Mount Everest, its peak being over 22km high. Mars is also common to huge dust storms that engulf large areas of the planet, which could damage vital solar panels or technology.

Why can’t we live on Mars as it is?

The temperature on Mars is overall very cold. Despite being nicknamed the Red Planet, its average surface temperature is -60 degrees celsius. We also won’t be able to breathe, as Mars’ atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide so humans would need spacesuits and oxygen tanks. There is no easy access to water, and the ground is also infertile meaning you won’t be able to grow or nurture crops for food. Gravity is also much weaker than Earth’s and long-term living in low gravity could create problems for the human body.

Attempting to live on Mars would cost billions of pounds and the journey alone would take months. We would have to start from scratch and spend billions, transporting materials just to build a whole new secure civilisation. Communication isn’t instant either, messages could take several minutes back and forth. Also, you would be living thousands of miles away from home, from friends, and from family. It would be very hard and even torturous to stay away from them that long, and even if you decide to go back it would still take months to get back to Earth.

Mars has no natural ecosystem, unlike Earth, where plants produce oxygen, where the soil is fertile, where water is easily accessible. On Earth there are supermarkets, houses, and factories that already exist and work, however if we were to start living on Mars you would have to build all of it from the start. It will cost millions and millions of pounds to transport the materials to build these structures and would take several months just for it to arrive, let alone build in already harsh conditions.

Conclusion

Overall, I think that living on Mars is possible, but not worth the money and resources it would take. I personally feel that rather than spending money on another planet, we should invest into ours, by building more hydro-electric dams, wind turbines and solar panels to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions destroying our home.