The Race to Mars

For my parents’ generation, the Apollo 11 moon landing was one of the biggest events that happened in their lives. Just as World Wars and the Great Depression marked prior generations, successfully landing a man on the moon was what characterized their youth.

Space was cool; they grew up watching the news rave about the new rockets that were launching and how scientists were creating innovative components to ensure the astronauts’ survival. New technology was marveled at and appeared to be so futuristic that anything beyond it seemed unimaginable. Subsequent generations have experienced an even more rapid advance in technology. However, instead of the excitement of space, millennials have been able to experience amazing technological advances; touch screen phones,self-driving cars, virtual reality. In the past, technological advancements seemed to be out of this world, but today they are more accessible and used every day. Today, we don’t have time to gather around the TV and watch the achievement of the latest technological wonder. In the years preceding the Apollo 11 launch, NASA spent 40 million dollars in their annual budget, whereas now only half of that is allocated towards space exploration. This is all changing with the Race to Mars.

The Race to Mars is the competition between private and governmental agencies that want to colonize Mars to make it inhabitable for humans. Many scientists think that we will be able to inhabit Mars within our lifetime because of the increasing development in technology and the success of private agencies such as SpaceX, a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company. Since SpaceX’s successful rocket launch, more companies are announcing that they will start their projects exploring Mars.

The two big competitors that seem to be the closest to achieve the goal of colonizing Mars are SpaceX and NASA. SpaceX’s Elon Musk, a technology entrepreneur and engineer, is the CEO of Tesla. In 2002, under the goal of the colonization of Mars, SpaceX developed launch vehicles and cargo spacecraft. In the mainstream media, Musk has been a big supporter of the idea that humans will be able to build a community on Mars, placing SpaceX at the forefront of Mars colonization. Musk has announced publicly that they want to send their rocket by 2022 or possibly sooner. In addition to their successful launch orbit and recovery of Falcon 1 in 2008 and their first propulsive landing of Falcon 9 in 2015, they were the first private company to launch an object to orbit the sun: Falcon Heavy.

NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, an independent agency of the United States’ government that sent the first man on the moon. They have sent multiple space vehicles to roam Mars, most notably the Mars Rover, made popular in pop culture movies, television and books. In 2017,NASA announced their project Mars 2020. This project focuses on identifying whether there is any signal of prior life and whether Mars has inhabitable conditions for humans. They will be sending a rover in 2020 to test pure oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide and to understand the hazards of Martian dust.

The rover is supposed to launch between July 17 and August 5, 2020 and scheduled to land on Mars on February 18, 2021, it will stay on Mars for one Mars year, which is 687 days, before coming back to Earth.

These two competitors, SpaceX and NASA, are the most well-known but there are various national space agencies and private companies such as Boeing, Blue Origin (Amazon) and Virgin Galactic (Virgin Airlines).

“MANY SCIENTISTS THINK THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO INHABIT MARS WITHIN OUR LIFETIME BECAUSE OF THE INCREASING DEVELOPMENT IN TECHNOLOGY.”

Two leading figures who have emerged in the debate on pursuing exploration to Mars are Neil deGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk.

Tyson is an astrophysicist and a firm believer that humans are better off on Earth and too much is unknown in Mars to make it a safe place to live. Tyson believes going to Mars may be compelling but not beyond an exotic vacation destination. “I’m skeptical that you’ll find legions of people that will go there and want to stay,” explains Tyson in an interview with Futurism. In his view, Mars is not likely to be permanently inhabited by humans.

Musk argues for the colonization of Mars. He supports the election of officials that will launch a rocket by 2022 to Mars. He is very confident that SpaceX will be able to transform Mars to resemble Earth and support human life, otherwise known as terraforming.

Based on their calculations, NASA is skeptical that a planet that old can be terraformed. This skepticism was based on a study released in August 2018 confirming that terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology. Musk has not been deterred: “There is a massive amount of CO2 on Mars absorbed into soil that’d be released upon heating. With enough energy via artificial or natural (sun) fusion, you can terraform almost any large, rocky body.”

In addition to the challengeof terraforming, colonizing Mars raises moral questions. In the past, colonization has led to the exploitation of people and resources for the advancement of other countries. The word colonization still has connotations of slavery and land pillaging. Although there are no people on Mars, preventing displacement or exploitation of life, the long-term consequences of affecting the ecosystem of Mars is not known. History has shown us that colonization comes at a cost that is too difficult to rationalize the potential gain. Running the risk of disrupting the balance of a planet for an exotic vacation for the wealthy does not seem wise.

According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the percentage of Americans who think that NASA should focus its energy on sending humans back to the moon is 3-percent. “Most Americans said NASA’s top priority should be to monitor the world’s climate. This is reflected, to some extent, by NASA’s own Earth Science initiatives—all of which are targeted to be axed by the president.” President Trump has referred to climate change as a “hoax of the Chinese government.” He has expressed little interest in addressing it as a major threat to our future. In fact, under President Trump’s administration, America is the only country to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. Even if the current president has not made climate change a priority, Americans believe that this should be NASA’s top priority. In the Pew Research Center survey of 2,541 people, 63 percent said that monitoring key parts of Earth’s climate should be a top NASA priority.

“TODAY, ADVANCE- MENTS HAPPEN SO FREQUENTLY THAT WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO GATHER AROUND THE TV AND WATCH THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE LATEST TECHNOLOGICAL WONDER.”

Although Americans are interested in space, they are not willing to make it a financial priority. Using tax dollars to fund projects to explore space rather than funding programs that directly help the public and environment is not in the public’s interest. In our pursuit of space, are we neglecting our own planet? Critics of colonizing Mars argue that our resources should be spent on Earth, while supporters argue that colonizing Mars will save our planet. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) released a report urging drastic changes to save the Earth from extreme heat, drought and floods caused by global warming. Musk argues that colonizing Mars may be our only hope for escaping this devastation.

Additionally, Musk warns that beyond climate change is the rapidly growing threat of artificial intelligence without regulation. “To survive an inevitable extinction event, humans would need to ‘become a space-faring civilization and a multi-planetary species.” He believes the mission to Mars will allow humans to escape the “existential threat” from artificial intelligence which will wipe out human life on earth.

The Race to Mars has presented many challenges for the future. The technology available to explore Mars and colonize another planet separate from ours raises many scientific, political, financial and moral questions. How we decide to use this technology will define our generation.

“IN OUR PURSUIT OF SPACE, ARE WE NEGLECTING OUR OWN PLANET?”

By Thiaby Sow

Illustrated By Sophia Foerster