Josh Watson
Lesley Watson
GS 1140
Mr. Griffin
10/11/2013

Project status report After numerous hours of research on the colonization of the planet Mars we have collected five real life hurdles that could be a threat to sustaining life on a planet other than earth. This group only contains two people. I Josh Watson, and my wife Lesley Watson. We have both teamed up and have done separate research on this topic and combined our information together to compare and contrast.
The first major issue would be Terra forming. Terra forming literally means “Earth Shaping”. To colonize Mars we would need to terra form Mars into a planet comparable to earth. Yes Mars has an atmosphere with winds, clouds, seasons and days that are 24 hours long, but Mars has no magnetic field, thus resulting in lethal doses of radiation to humans. There has been evidence that suggests that the remains of polar ice caps have a magnetic field and are safe from radiation. If nothing else works then we would be limited to those areas. It might be possible to turn the Carbon Dioxide rich air into oxygen just like plants and trees do on earth but there would still be major issues with the planet not having a shield for protection. The cost of a trip to planet Mars is another hurdle that gets in our way. NASA has the ability to build a vehicle to take astronauts to Mars, but due to Barrack Obama’s decision to cut the Constellation program in 2010 it appears that any trips to Mars would have to be paid for by funds available in the private sector without government involvement, support or guarantee. Estimates made by expert [Neil De Grasse Tyson] say that a single trip to Mars could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The cost could be cut in half by making a series of one way trips and forgo a return trip entirely. Humans that chose to stay and colonize would have to wait for a return supply run. Being that Mars is 34 Million miles from earth this could take up to two years for additional supplies to return back to Mars. Taking a trip to Mars could take up to one year to complete, and that is only factoring a one way trip. That’s up to 365 days being stuck on a small spacecraft. Not only would the chosen people in the spacecraft get on each other’s nerves at the least, but the human faces a variety health concerns when it is subjected to zero gravity. Long periods of exposure to zero gravity can cause muscle deterioration and can also weaken bones. This would be something that average humans would have trouble dealing with. Working in space suits, and helping to build and colonize on a new planet and having muscle and bone issues at the same time could pose serious problems. Not to mention, most of the doctors with a safe place to practice would still be on earth. This could slow down the growing process of Mars and eventually people would be comparable to geriatrics. Constant exercise could possibly help, but even Astronauts on board space stations for several months’ loose muscle and bone density and they exercise daily. Expert Neil De Grasse Tyson performed a series of experiments asking participants if they would even be interested in going to Mars. Professor Tyson would then show pictures of Mars that were similar to a rocky, cold dead dessert. No bodies of water, no vegetation and a very gloomy place. To colonize on Mars a bio dome or space station would be the confined space that we as humans would be limited to for life. Even if we were able to walk around the planet without a space suit and breathe the martin air, the weather would always be cold. Despite all the negative side of living on Mars, plenty of people have wanted to volunteer at many of lectures. Physicist Paul Davies mentioned on [Fact Monster] that nearly every time he gives a lecture involving this subject, nearly the whole lecture room raised their hands to be volunteers. Scientist say that at some point in the very distant future, earth will no longer be able to sustain life. The sun is at nearly half its life span being about 5 billion years old. The sun has about 3 billion more years before it burns out. As the sun gets closer to its death, it will enter its “Red Giant “phase and expand 100 times its current size. At that size it would completely engulf the planet Venus. It is a very good possibility that it could one say engulf the earth. If our goal is to move away from a dying planet and colonize Mars, how could we truly survive for a long period of time if we rely on our home planet? With that being said, all colonization would have to be done indoors. The problem with colonizing another planet is that nothing can survive without the sun. [Britannica] All we would be doing is running from the sun, going from sustainable planet to sustainable planet, when in reality our fate lies in the suns hands. In my opinion, the most deranged part of colonizing another planet is that the environmental factors would eventually change our traits and humans would eventually look different. In simplest terms, we would evolve into Martians. [Britannica]