Consider This from NPR - NASA Hopes To Land Humans On Mars By 2030. Is That A Good Thing?

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

We're moving closer to the dream of landing humans on Mars. But will sustaining human life on Mars even be possible?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Today we take the next step towards a self-sustaining Mars colony. Who are these people who want to take one-way trips? They don't like it here on Earth? Are they the adventure types? Are they the people who want to die young? Who are these people? Have you ever wanted to go to Mars? Life on there wouldn't be easy.

So I gotta make water and grow food on a planet where nothing grows. It turns out, though, that plenty of people do want to visit the red planet, and four are already there. So far on our mission, I've reported monthly to this audio log that we're doing great. And the really good news is we continue to really do great. Well, at least they are as close to Mars as you can get without leaving Earth. I worry that that's boring to people, but I actually think that us feeling relatively happy and really just moving along well in the mission is such a good sign and such a delight for me that I can't help but report it to you all.

So I feel like that's really great. That is the audio log of Kelly Haston. She's one of four volunteer crew members currently living in NASA's 1,700 square foot simulated Mars habitat. They entered in June of last year, and they will emerge in July of this year. And I'm not saying that it hasn't been tough and we haven't had our challenges in our first six months. But of course, the second half is, you know, happily on the way home on the downhill, but it's also still going to be tough.

The space agency is trying to determine as realistically as possible how living on Mars would affect humans. NASA recently did a call out for another batch of volunteers. Make sure to get your application in by April 2nd if you want to live on fake Mars. Consider this. NASA is hoping to land humans on the surface of the real planet by 2030,

forwarding the possibility of human colonization. But maybe living on Mars is not such a great idea. You know, I think the probability of dying in an initial trip to Mars is probably pretty high. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Sunday, March 10th. It's Consider This from NPR. Mars might look sort of Earth-like from the photos, but it's got some really unique

challenges. Kelly Wienersmith is a behavioral ecologist and self-described science geek who has always loved space. Along with her husband, Zach, she's the author of A City on Mars. Can we settle space? Should we settle space? And have we really thought this through? I asked her to talk about just how challenging it would be to actually survive on Mars. Yeah, it would be pretty hard. Mars might look sort of Earth-like from the photos, but it's got some really unique challenges. Like, its atmosphere is only 1% of the atmosphere that we have here on Earth. So you can't go outside with a spacesuit, so there'll be no, like, enjoying the feel of the breeze on your skin. You're going to need to suit up. And that also means that if your habitat ever depressurizes and you don't fix it fast enough,

you would probably not make it through that experience. We also don't really understand how Mars impacts the human body. So we've had humans orbiting Earth since the 1970s. We have had over 600 astronauts go to space. But the space stations are orbiting under the protection of Earth's magnetosphere. So they don't get exposed to the radiation that space has to offer, which differs from what we have here on Earth. So we actually don't know, for example, how much cancer risk would be increased in a place like Mars, which doesn't have a strong magnetosphere like we have on Earth and doesn't have a thick atmosphere to protect you. Also, that sand on the surface of Mars,

it's actually called regolith. It's sharp and jagged and sort of laden with endocrine-disrupting hormones, which will mess up your blood pressure and your heart rate. So you're going to want to make sure that you don't grow your plants directly in that or let that get into your habitat. And it's probably going to be cramped. Like right now, it costs something like $300 to send just an apple to the International Space Station. It's going to cost way more to send it to Mars. And so you're going to have a pretty small habitat when you're initially starting out on Mars. So it's going to be cramped and you better like the people you're stuck in there with. Why do you think there's such a draw then?

Because this is a scientific goal, not just at NASA, but at big private companies like SpaceX. And more beyond that, it really seems like something embedded in our culture, this desire to get to the next big thing. I feel like there are a lot of people out there, including the people who have volunteered to be locked in a room at the Johnson Space Center for a year, who have dreamed about maybe going to

Mars one day. Why do you think that is? I'm a sci-fi geek. I totally get it. The idea of waking up on the surface of Mars and seeing a Martian sunrise sounds absolutely epic. I think that would be super cool. But there are people who have other specific reasons for going, and it sort of depends on the community that you're talking to. So for example, the rotating space station community, which these days is led by Jeff Bezos, who has a rocket company called Blue Origin, they argue that living in these rotating space stations is going to save the Earth, because you can move people off planets to these rotating space stations that's going to reduce the Earth because you can move people off planets to these rotating space stations that's going to reduce the pressure on the planet Earth.

And then a lot of the Mars folks are excited about a chance to sort of start new governments and new ways of life. And a lot of them argue that Earth has become bureaucratic and wimpy and going to Mars, we'd be able to start over again and sort of fix all the mistakes that we've made here on Earth. And that community tends to be led by Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX. And Musk is also particularly excited

about having a backup for humanity. So the idea that if humans are multi-planetary, if something happens to the humans on Earth, there'll be a backup. So humans can continue on even if something happens to Earth. So there's a lot of different reasons for wanting to go to space, a lot of different camps. But for me, I think it's mostly awesome. So do you think there's value in these continued studies that NASA is doing?

Do you think there's more information to gather about what this is like? Or like you said, is the track record pretty clear and we know what the challenges would be? You know, so I love NASA and I love their exploration missions and I never want to really be on the record saying that I am not pro something NASA's doing, but here I go. You know, so to me, the value of these analogs can be measured in what you change about your mission plan when the analog is done. So, for example, if at the very end they said, okay, we know that humans can't survive isolated and confined environments for nine months because they end up hating each other, so we're not going to go. That would be a concrete thing. That's not going to happen here. And as far as I can tell, there's no specific piece of information they're going to get at the end of this one year or at the end of the three one-year stints that's going to

specifically change something about a plan for going to Mars. You know, we've had astronauts in space for more than 50 years. Surely we can extract the data from what we know about what astronauts eat on the International Space Station. This just seems like an incredibly expensive way to sort of validate that. And also, it's not even running for the full two years that you'd need for a mission to Mars, because Mars, because of orbital mechanics, it takes about two years, about six months to get there. You usually stay for about a year, that's like for most of the proposals, and then a six month trip back.

So, you know, for two years, you're not even getting all the psychology information you'd need about how hard it is to live with four people for the whole length of time you'd need to be out there. So as far as I can tell, I'm not seeing the piece of information that's going to change our plans for going to Mars. Maybe I've missed it. Kelly Wintersmith is a behavioral ecologist and author. Her latest book, written with her husband Zach, is A City on Mars, Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. This episode was produced by Mark Rivers. It was edited by Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.