Tim Irwin

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Professor Doran
ENC 2135
8 November 2016
Mars Colonization
Mars colonization has been a reoccurring topic in today's society. Many people have
talked about it, and many companies are currently in the planning stage for actually traveling
there and setting up a colony. Mars colonization involves many aspects and has to include
intense planning and preparation because if one thing fails then a disaster might occur. Mars
colonization means what the name implies, set up a colony on the planet Mars and be able to
sustain life and create a new civilization. However, there are problems we face both trying to get
there and actually setting up camp there. There are various issues we must overcome in order to
travel to mars or travel into deep space in general which include radiation, life support longevity,
and much more. There are also issues with how certain companies and government corporations
are planning on getting there including technical issues and current technology limits. Though
once we are able to find solutions to these problems we will actually be able to successfully
travel to mars and set up a self sustaining colony.
There are a few companies and/or government agencies out there that are trying to get to
mars. Some include Mars One, SpaceX, Boeing, and NASA. Recently SpaceXs CEO Elon
Musk made a presentation explaining his plan on how to get to Mars. His presentation goes
through various technical aspects of his plan including orbital refilling, propellant production,
and numerous engine components. Orbital refilling is the refueling of the spaceship in orbit
before it takes off for Mars. Propellant Production is the production of rocket fuel so that we can
produce fuel both on Earth and Mars. This is one of his main components in his plan. He says
you really want to build a propellant plant on mars and send the spaceships back (Making

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Humans, 00:14:00-0014:05). He wants to use the resources readily available on mars to create
fuel so that instead of having a massive graveyard of ships, we can reuse the space ship more
than once (Making Humans, 00:13:50-00:13:55). He goes on to say Mars happens to work out
well for that because it has a CO2 atmosphere, its got water ice in the soil, and with H2O and
CO2 you can produce CH4, methane, and O2 (Making Humans, 00:14:08-00:14:21). The
atmosphere and materials on Mars allows us to produce optimal fuel for the spaceship. Mars One
has the same idea of sending people to Mars, however their plan includes a one way mission
rather than being able to reuse their spaceship. The Mars One program plans on having three
separate launches. 1st launch is for a Multipurpose rover used for site prospecting and clearing,
habitat set up, crew transportation, and regolith collection for local processing (Do, et al. 194).
The second launch is for the Crew Habitat. The habitat includes six modified Dragon modules
connected with two inflatable units (Do, et al. 194). The inflatables are used as living units
and a crop growth area (Do, et al. 194). The Dragon modules are used as life support units
and supply units (Do, et al. 195). The third launch is to send the crew. The crew consists of 4
trained astronauts. This is different from the amount of people SpaceX plans to send, which is
100. The two missions are different however both have the same goal on colonizing Mars.
Another proposed way of traveling to Mars is to use cycler vehicles. Cycler vehicles are
spaceships that continuously travel between two planets and in this case, Mars and Earth. I like
to think of it as the International Space Station traveling to Mars and Earth continuously rather
than always orbiting the Earth. This proposed method would drastically reduce the amount of
launches and missions to Mars. The proposed plan includes keeping a certain percentage of
people on Mars all the time. There are a few different ways to do this which includes between
one and three vehicles. The Aldrin Cycler proposes to use two vehicles, one outbound and

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one inbound (Landau, et al. 122). The idea is to have one ship going to mars and one ship
coming back to earth, with the two always in motion. This plan allows24 people on Mars
82% of the time and 12 people on Mars 12% of the time (Landau, et al. 127). The ships
will have similar refueling techniques as Elon Musk's proposes, refueling while close to earth so
that the vehicle does not have to re-enter the earths atmosphere and land. Though the technical
aspects seem relatively sound in design, there are a few problems that need to be overcome in
order to successfully undergo deep space travel, which includes traveling to Mars. These issues
include Radiation/space protection, oxygen generation, and farming. The issue with space
radiation is extremely important. The threshold for serious health effects is in the 0.5-Sv
range for high dose rate x rays or gamma rays (Straume, et al.). This means that the ideal dosage
for radiation should be below this range, however the annual dose in interplanetary space from
galactic cosmic radiation is about 0.73 Sv during solar minimum (Straume, et al.). This
means that the cosmic radiation at times can increase to a certain amount that will cause serious
health effects to humans. Taylor writes Chronic exposure to the cosmic radiation may likely
lead to mutations of human-borne bacteria, fungi, and the like (162). In order to combat cosmic
radiation we need to create some sort of protection against it. Another problem that needs to be
addressed is the generation of oxygen while traveling through space. Taylor says humans
consume 20.2 mol of O2 per day. Which means that depending on how many crew members
there are, there needs to be a large amount of O2 supplied on the ship. A way to address this
factor can be farming. In taylors example she uses corn. Corn produces 2.5 mol of O2 per day
which means the area of corn required to produce the daily oxygen consumption replenishment
is 8.1 m2 per person (Taylor, 156). However because humans produce CO2 while exhaling the
corn also needs to remove that CO2. This means that to remove the daily CO2 per person, 43.6

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m2 of corn bed per person is required (Taylor, 156). All of this is based on the usage of corn,
however corn may not be the crop plant of choice, though it is a very versatile crop plant
(Taylor, 156). A factors that need to be taken into account when farming in space is gravity.
Gravity affects the movement of heat, water vapor, CO2 and O2 between plant surfaces and
their environment (Monje, et al. 151). What needs to happen is Earth-based cultural practices
and crops must be adapted to grow optimally in new environments with new biophysical
combinations (Monje, et al. 154). The practices of current farmers need to be changed to
account for the effects of space. The farm on the spacecraft needs to be designed to fit the needs
of the crew but also needs to be designed around the limited amount of resources and space. Like
the corn, the spacecraft must have an optimal amount of space to provide atmospheric control of
CO2 (Monje, et al. 155). Once many of these issues are addressed programs and companies like
SpaceX and Mars One will be able to successfully travel to Mars.
Once the spacecraft and crew arrive on Mars they need to set up a settlement for them so
that they will be able to sustain life. Scientists have look back at the history of Mars to see if it
ever once had life. The theory is heavily based on the ecological adaptations to increasing
dryness observed in dryland ecosystems on Earth (Davila and Schulze-Makuch, 159). The
deserts of earth can be analyzed and compared to Mars. If Mars and Earths deserts had similar
ecological adaptations, then we can propose that Mars once held life. This theory implies the
possibility of life on Mars until relatively recent times (Davila and Schulze-Makuch, 159). With
this backing current techniques of colonizing Mars, we can conclude it might be possible to be
able to sustain life on Mars. Though Marss ground is dry and sandy, in order to set up a colony,
the land must be able to withstand the establishment of buildings via various constructive
technologies, by modifying the ground of Mars with filler, epoxy resin (type ED-20) and

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tetraethoxysilane TEOS (Mukbaniani, et al. 155). These are the various constructive
technologies that will strengthen the martian based materials needed to create a colony. The use
of Polymer composites on the basis of epoxy resin with the AMG (Artificial Martian Ground)
results in a building material with high physical properties (mechanical strengthening, thermal
stability and water tightness) (Mukbaniani, et al. 160). This allows future construction on Mars
to be able to use natural martian material with added components to withstand the martian
climate. This is the Long term shelter plan; to use the soil found on mars to create building
materials (Achenbach). However, in order to effectively be able to produce these materials, an
already established base needs to be erected before future buildings can be constructed. The Mars
One mission has a plan for the initial phase of creating a colony. The plan they have created is to
have three different types of habitation units (Do, et al. 195). They are the Supply Units, Life
Support Units, and Living Units. The Supply Unit, which as the name states, store(s) supplies
and spare equipment for the habitat (Do, et al. 195). The Life Support Unit contain(s) air
revitalization, water processing and waste management technologies and stores (Do, et al. 195).
The unit provides all necessary things to support life. The Living Units contain a 500 m3
inflatable structure, an airlock for crew extravehicular activity, and the wet areas of the habitat,
such as the waste and hygiene compartment (Do, et al. 195). The living area also counts as a
food production area as well. There are a few problems with the establishment of a colony on
Mars. One thing that might not be necessarily the first thing that comes to mind, however it is
important, is the lack of decomposition on the planet. This means the waste produced by humans
does not decompose on the planet. Organisms do the decomposing which means that if Mars
is sterile nothing decomposes (Cosmic Queries, 00:08:19-00:08:58). Waste will just stay in
the ground. Besides the problem of waste, the problem of gravity on Mars can affect future

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human life, if one is born on mars. If someone gives birth to a kind of human, that can breath a
different mixture of oxygen or a variation that is just natural to what goes on, they become the
dominant strain of human species there, that's how you end up speciating (Cosmic Queries,
00:40:00-00:40:17). The difference of the two planets can cause a different strain of humans after
a period of time. This is a problem if one wants to travel between the two planets. The difference,
though it might be small, can cause various health conditions if they are there long enough. This
can be seen with low gravity. Someone in low gravity causes bones to waste away
(Achenbach). The difference will affect humans if they are on the planet for a long period of
time. This, and many other problems, can be fixed with something called terraforming.
Terraforming is to change a planet to resemble the characteristics of Earth. A simple way of
terraforming is to plant crops on Mars because plants require carbon dioxide, and their
byproduct is oxygen, and since Marss atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, this can allow
for the slow process of changing Marss atmosphere to include Oxygen and eventually change
the characteristics of the planet (Cosmic Queries, 00:21:10-00:22:05). Though this is only a
simple and long way of terraforming. There are many other proposed ways to terraform Mars
that involve things like nuclear bombs and power plants.
Many factors make up space travel and space colonization. There are not only many
technologies we need to create in order to make this idea a reality but there are also many issues
involved with traveling and colonizing. What needs to be done is to continue to do research on
space, mars, and interplanetary travel. The way many companies are planning their missions are
fantastic and they are helping, slowly, to make this dream happen. However because space is so
vast and there are still many things we do not understand about it, companies like SpaceX and
Mars One should not rush into setting up a colony. Without the necessary precautions and

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preparation, a failure in the mission will result in injury, death, or maybe things we have not yet
foreseen. There needs to be a bigger uprising with more people being interested in this topic and
more people trying to find ways around solutions to problems with space travel and colonization
of planets that are unlike earth. With a collective interest in solving these problems, we can
accomplish a dream that seems like it came out of a science fiction movie.