Living on Mars is one of the most discussed topics since SpaceX announced that they want to send humans to the red planet by 2024. NASA is also building advanced technology to send humans by 2030. Hollywood has also come up with movies that tell stories about humans visiting the red planet in an attempt to conquer it, like The Martian (2015), Red Planet (2000), Mission to Mars (2000), and several others.
Thinking about Mars might give us chills but the crucial question is it at all inhabitable? Firstly you need to get to Mars to check whether you can survive or not and travelling to the red planet can be quite tricky. Mars comes closest to Earth in between every 1.6 years which is about 260 days. This is exactly the time the rocket will take a minimum of 130 days to reach Mars.
After landing on Mars with Air Bag Landing System or Sky-Crane Landing system first you need to tackle the Martian atmosphere. Sources said that the Martian atmosphere is thin with only 1% of Earth’s atmosphere. Mars is almost half of Earth’s size with 99% less air. The gravity is also 38% of Earth’s which is also the reason the red planet caters to a thin atmosphere.
The martian air consists mostly of carbon dioxide which can be deadly for humans. While Martian carbon dioxide is 96% of air, it has almost 1% of oxygen. Apparently, this can not be fit for any human survival.
Astronomers or humans have to use a support system for breathing. If you come in contact with the bare Martian atmosphere you can die almost instantly due to suffocation in low atmospheric pressure.
However, if you are supported with life-saving instruments such as NASA’s Perseverance Rover MOXIE or The Mars oxygen In0Situ Resouce Utilization Experiment which can convert Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen. According to the Principal Investigator for the MOXIE payload on NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover, Michael Hecht, “When we send humans to Mars, we will want them to return safely, and to do that they need a rocket to lift off the planet. Liquid oxygen propellant is something we could make there and not have to bring with us. One idea would be to bring an empty oxygen tank and fill it up on Mars.”
MOXIE might produce enough oxygen for you to survive artificially because otherwise forget about having a bare experience of the Martian atmosphere.
