I don't think humans should inhabit the surface of Mars just yet. Instead, we should build orbital colonies. At first small research stations as for Antarctica. Later these could build to much larger colonies using materials from the Moons of Mars.
Humans in orbit would be more comfortable, safer, in a shirt sleeves environment. We have all the materials we need to make habitats in orbit, no need to do the expensive and dangerous missions to the surface. Studies have also shown that we could explore the surface more thoroughly from orbit than from the surface, for less cost.
Humans on the surface are much overrated. In our clumsy pressurized space-suits we couldn't do much directly. It would be better to work by telerpesence from orbit. Even mining, a human in a spacesuit would have difficulty mining a few meters. A remote controlled autonomous mole burrowing through the Martian crust could mine for kilometers, in one study of the problem.
But the most important reason in my view is that humans would unavoidably contaminate Mars or at least greatly increase the risk of introducing microbes to Mars. A human has about a hundred trillion microbes in 10,000 different species - and different mix of species for each human. Many of those species are not studied or well understood. Some are extremophiles that, though they live on humans, retain surprising capabilities to withstand e.g. very high or very low temperatures and so on.
After a hard landing you would contaminate Mars with that life in a way that could probably never be reversed as it would spread in the dust storms. Even after a soft landing, the spacesuits and suit docks leak microbes whenever they are used.
This suggests that our only chance to study a pristine Mars is in the period up to the first human landing on the planet. We have instruments able to detect a single amino acid or DNA molecule in a sample.
What we could discover from a pristine Mars is almost unlimited in its possibilities as there may be life there which we can't yet detect, either present day life or past life. There are reasons why the life would be hard to detect, as, for instance, there is some process, probably chemical, which removes organics from the surface. We think that's true because there would be some organics at least, deposited by meteorites and the expected levels were not found by Curiosity.
So the search for ancient or present day life on Mars may be a long proceses. It should not be hurried up. If we find interesting life on Mars or interesting evidence of the evolution of life before the earliest records on Earth, then we would probably not want to colonize it at all, or not for some considerable time, so we can study the evidence properly free from contamination.
But there is no problem inhabiting Mars orbit. We can also build other space habitats in other places in the solar system.
There is no hurry about colonizing the Mars surface. We might not need it anyway for colonization, and if it turned out that we did, it would take centuries of work before it even began to be as hospitable as the Earth even our harshest deserts. So we can afford to wait a few decades, or centuries, to let the scientists study it properly.
Meanwhile then we can build up colonies in orbit. This will provide useful support and infrastructure if we ever do decide to colonize the surface.
For more about all this, see Trouble With Terraforming Mars
Also Asteroid Resources Could Create Space Habs For Trillions; Land Area Of A Thousand Earths
and How Valuable is Pristine Mars for Humanity
and Ten Reasons NOT To Live On Mars, Great Place to Explore
and "Ten Reasons Not To Live On Mars, Great Place To Explore - On The Space Show"
and other articles in my column at Science20, Robert Walker's blog
Humans in orbit would be more comfortable, safer, in a shirt sleeves environment. We have all the materials we need to make habitats in orbit, no need to do the expensive and dangerous missions to the surface. Studies have also shown that we could explore the surface more thoroughly from orbit than from the surface, for less cost.
Humans on the surface are much overrated. In our clumsy pressurized space-suits we couldn't do much directly. It would be better to work by telerpesence from orbit. Even mining, a human in a spacesuit would have difficulty mining a few meters. A remote controlled autonomous mole burrowing through the Martian crust could mine for kilometers, in one study of the problem.
But the most important reason in my view is that humans would unavoidably contaminate Mars or at least greatly increase the risk of introducing microbes to Mars. A human has about a hundred trillion microbes in 10,000 different species - and different mix of species for each human. Many of those species are not studied or well understood. Some are extremophiles that, though they live on humans, retain surprising capabilities to withstand e.g. very high or very low temperatures and so on.
After a hard landing you would contaminate Mars with that life in a way that could probably never be reversed as it would spread in the dust storms. Even after a soft landing, the spacesuits and suit docks leak microbes whenever they are used.
This suggests that our only chance to study a pristine Mars is in the period up to the first human landing on the planet. We have instruments able to detect a single amino acid or DNA molecule in a sample.
What we could discover from a pristine Mars is almost unlimited in its possibilities as there may be life there which we can't yet detect, either present day life or past life. There are reasons why the life would be hard to detect, as, for instance, there is some process, probably chemical, which removes organics from the surface. We think that's true because there would be some organics at least, deposited by meteorites and the expected levels were not found by Curiosity.
So the search for ancient or present day life on Mars may be a long proceses. It should not be hurried up. If we find interesting life on Mars or interesting evidence of the evolution of life before the earliest records on Earth, then we would probably not want to colonize it at all, or not for some considerable time, so we can study the evidence properly free from contamination.
But there is no problem inhabiting Mars orbit. We can also build other space habitats in other places in the solar system.
There is no hurry about colonizing the Mars surface. We might not need it anyway for colonization, and if it turned out that we did, it would take centuries of work before it even began to be as hospitable as the Earth even our harshest deserts. So we can afford to wait a few decades, or centuries, to let the scientists study it properly.
Meanwhile then we can build up colonies in orbit. This will provide useful support and infrastructure if we ever do decide to colonize the surface.
For more about all this, see Trouble With Terraforming Mars
Also Asteroid Resources Could Create Space Habs For Trillions; Land Area Of A Thousand Earths
and How Valuable is Pristine Mars for Humanity
and Ten Reasons NOT To Live On Mars, Great Place to Explore
and "Ten Reasons Not To Live On Mars, Great Place To Explore - On The Space Show"
and other articles in my column at Science20, Robert Walker's blog
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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