First Prompt; What are the obstacles to a successful Mars colonization, and how might we overcome these obstacles? Use textual evidence to support your answer. Choose evidence from the articles I provided, or use your own source. If you use your own source, be sure to
provide an MLA citation with your paragraph.
Making Mars Livable
One problem encountered in going to mars is shelter ,and a solution is to use the land to 3D print building materials to use. “Ingenious 3D printing methods are already in development as a means to convert stuff we find there into buildings we need” said Leonard David. With this method we will easily be able to build shelters to live in by using the things already on mars ,and turning them into building ,and the great thing is that it is already in development so it will be done by the time we set boots on mars ,so we will be ready to live on mars.
Water on Mars?
There are many obstacles that we have to face for a successful colonization on Mars, our main obstacle is how to get water. Scientist believe that there is no water on Mars, which is bad for us as humans because we need water to sustain life. Although there is a belief that their once was water on Mars, now due to the current condition of Mars with its freezing temperatures and thin atmosphere means that any water on Mars would be deep underground, because of that, if the temperature did increase the frozen water would melt and turn into water vapor due to the thin atmosphere. In the book The Martian by Andy Weir, the main character, Mark Watney is accidentally left on Mars after his crew had to evacuate due to a sandstorm. In the book, they use a water reclaimer to get water, in Mark’s case there is only one water reclaimer, no back up but if the water reclaimer does stop working he can drink reserved water until he can set something up to where he can boil his pee. Mark is living in the Hab while on Mars, he states, “Also, I’ll lose half a liter of water per day to breathing until the humidity in the Hab reaches its maximum and water starts condensing on every surface.” This shows how although we have successful ways to have drinking water, we still have problems with needing water to create the correct atmosphere in the Hab to sustain life. I believe to overcome this obstacle you could send a backup water reclaimer to Mars, and to find more proper, safer ways of boiling pee, so that there will be excess water for creating the perfect atmosphere and for sustaining life on Mars.
Colonizing Mars
A major challenge facing scientists in colonizing Mars is the lack of water; scientists intend on combatting this by recycling the frozen water on the surface of the red planet. Mars has such cold temperatures, with an average low of -109℉, resulting in a large majority of the water on Mars being frozen in polar ice caps. If astronauts were to go to Mars, they would need to utilize this water for many more purposes besides drinking in order to be as efficient as possible. An article by USA Today states, “Water on Mars is either on the subsurface or near the poles in the form of ice. These water sources can be extracted and used for drinking, split for the purpose of oxygen, used for propellant, made into methane and liquid oxygen and used (as fuel) for vehicles that ascend and return to Earth.” Another way to conserve water is to recycle it, similar to what water treatment facilities currently do on Earth. If astronauts are able to recycle the minimal amounts of water on Mars, then it will increase efficiency on the rockets used to launch people to the red planet. Available payloads of these rockets will increase, due to there being little requirement for fuel used to return, as well as drinkable water on Mars. Conquering the challenge of the water available on Mars will eventually allow humans to colonize the cold desert planet.