A Mars colony has been a dream for many of us for decades. Besides being a staple of science fiction, a colony on another world is a key step in making humanity more extinction-proof than we currently are. As things stand, all it takes is a big enough rock coming from space and we go the way of the dinosaurs.
However, Heat Street paid NASA a visit, and what they found was fascinating.
Yes, you heard that right. Humans. On Mars. By 2030.
Of course, I’m forced to temper my enthusiasm with realism. That’s 13 years away, meaning such plans will have to survive at least two presidential administrations. Even if President Trump is supportive, what about his successor? All we can do is maintain some level of optimism and hope the next guy shares such a sentiment.
However, Heat Street focused on the awesome, and for good reason.
Heat Street went to Kennedy Space Center to take a look at what inventions it would take to colonize Space. If you’re still wondering whether growing potatoes like Matt Damon did in Martian was plausible, turns out that NASA can already grow crops efficiently in conditions precisely mimicking the ones on Mars. They are also testing robots that would produce all the necessary resources to sustain humans on the Red Planet for a period of time. (If you’re a human, perhaps in the not so distant future you’ll have a chance to give the potato trick a try yourself, who knows.)
What’s more, the Moon, according to these guys, is possibly going to be a mid-point or the proving ground for the Mars mission. There are trillions of kilos of water and other materials frozen into the ice on the North and South poles of the Moon. Why not excavate that material, turn it into rocket propellant and fuel rockets from the Moon to Mars—which apparently is easier and cheaper than from Earth. This particular project, called “Resource Prospector” will be launched in 2020.
Many on the left like to lament such things, arguing we should be focusing our attention on the Earth. They want these resources diverted toward climate change, for example. Frankly, these people deserve to be ignored and not just because they’re prattling on about climate change.
Leaving Earth for another planet, possibly more than one, will do far more for humanity than wrecking the economy of the developed world just so the rest of the planet can capitalize on it by refusing to budge. This is something that might actually save humanity.
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