Can Humans Live on Mars?
NASA's plan as of 1969 was to have a human Mars mission by 1981 and a permanent Mars base in 1988. However, interplanetary human voyages pose definite scientific and technological challenges.
One would have to deal with the rigors of travel — issues of food, water and oxygen, the deleterious effects of micro gravity , potential hazards such as fire and radiation and the fact that any such astronauts would be millions of miles away from help and confined together for years at a time. Landing, working, living on another planet and returning from it would offer a host of challenges as well.
Nevertheless, astronauts seem eager to find out. For example, this year six volunteers lived in a pretend spacecraft for nearly a year and a half in the so-called Mars 500 project, the longest spaceflight simulation ever conducted, aimed at replicating a manned mission to Mars from beginning to end.
There are even numerous volunteers for a one-way trip to the Red Planet. Tiny rock-eating microbes could mine precious extraterrestrial resources from Mars and pave the way for the first human colonists, and farmers could grow crops on its surface.
The mystery as to whether or not humans will ever go to Mars may rest largely on whether or not the powers-that-be can be convinced to go there.
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