Is Mars Really Worth It?

(Previously published on Hidden Nook, as well as Blog Critics)

Before any space lovers accuse this line of thought as solar heresy, let us consider the following scenario's as possible. Martian dust is revealed to be non-fatal towards human flesh and engineers have developed ways to keep the red particles from damaging any machines. Vast water resources are located underneath the Martian ground and science has developed a way to make the red soil fertile for plants.

NASA, as well as international space agencies have devised ways to reduce the amount of time to terra form a world from an extreme 10,000 years towards within a lifetime of fifty years. Last but not least, education has enlightened humanity the need to breed amongst the stars and has encouraged world governments to provide international space agencies with all of the funding they will ever need to accomplish their mission of resettling Mars.

But even if all of these were probable in the near future, Mars is missing a key ingredient to make it a worthy home for terrestian life. That key ingredient missing from the red planet can be summed up in one word--resources.

Now some may consider this logic trivial or silly, but unless Mars has something to offer the solar system (or more specifically, Earth) then it will not be worth the trillions of dollars necessary to turn this barren wasteland into an Eden. Similar to the California gold rush, valuable resources on Mars would stimulate a desire to travel towards the red planet, which in turn would stimulate businesses and corporations to promote an economy upon its surface.

The Moon is a perfect example of this. Until recently, their was little desire to travel back towards the lunar surface, as humanity had already established their presence by landing on the white world in 1969. Despite Presidential direction from the Commander in Chief (i.e. Bush), NASA was still searching for a logical reason to revisit Earth's nearest neighbor.

They were that is until Hubble spotted an element called helium-3 upon the moons surface, an element some researches herald as the perfect non-polluting fuel. Some scientists have analyzed that there is enough of this on the moons surface to power the world for thousands of years, which has caught the attention of fuel hungry nations, such as China.

What Mars lacks is a similar resource that would attract the necessary attention to not only conquer the world environmentally, but also enable a worldwide economy to develop. After all, people are going to need to earn an income while surviving the fierce habitat, especially if Mars is to be home to millions of colonists, let alone billions of future residents.

Once a colony is established on the red planet, it will need to contribute something back towards planet Earth, something other than a few scientific curiosities. If the Martian globe is unable to provide any "fruit" back towards those who invested colonizing the world, then its greatest hope is to become a tourist destination hosting miles of desert for the eye to see.

Sources: Science @ NASA, Space.com, Aerospace Scholars NASA

Hyperlink: Red Chasm (Mars)



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