How We’ll Live on Mars by Stephen Petranek: Twenty-First Century Acts

Martian rotations and revolutions deliver days and years respectively 39 minutes 25 seconds and 322 days longer than Earth’s. Oval orbits additionally encourage astrophysicists to envision:

• insulation in pressurized tents and underground shelters against minimum temperature ranges of 70°F to -100°F (21.11°C to -73.33°C);
• nomadism for warmer weather alternately north and south of Mars’ equator against seasonal durations and variations twice Earth’s in length and severity.

Thinner atmospheres and weaker gravity further find astro-engineers contemplating insulated, pressurized chambers and clothes against cosmic and solar radiation.

Near-surface and surface compositions likewise get astro-climatologists, astro-ecologists, and astro-geologists to ponder adjusting atmospheric content from 1% carbon monoxide and oxygen, 2% argon, 2% nitrogen, 95% carbon dioxide to 40% carbon dioxide. 

Electrical currents, gene therapy, 150-mile (241.40-kilometer) reflectors, and spinning spacecraft moreover head to-do lists regarding Mars-related flight and settlement challenges. They indicate respective attempts to make possible:

• accessible water and rocket fuel;
• carbon dioxide-tolerant edible plants and human lungs;
• globally warmed Martian climate change;
• human weightless-tolerant transport.

The above-mentioned problem identifications, mitigations, and solutions join to suggest twenty-first, twenty-fourth, and thirty-first century dates for respective realizations of:

• four-passenger, 250-day flights to and from Mars;
• gene-modified human blood cells and lungs;
• terraformed Martian eco-systems.

Scenarios of sustainable communities on Mars keep entrepreneurs, governments, and investors busy in:

• China;
• Netherlands;
• United States of America.

They lead to venture capital-building through:

• broadcasting contracts;
• crew applicant fees;
• mining rights;
• passenger fares.

The mini-book makes Mars-related flight and settlement practicalities and projections painless and timely. It in fact needs to be remembered throughout the scientific rush to examine and exploit asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Mars indeed offers inexpensive efficiency for:

• exploring deep-space;
• investigating space rocks;
• making return-trip equipment, food, and fuel;
• producing finished goods from space-rock cobalt, gold, iron, nickel, platinum, and rhodium;
• yielding antimony, copper, gold, phosphorus, silver, tin, and zinc when twenty-second century Earth’s mines are exhausted.

How We’ll Live on Mars ultimately ponders:

• emigrating from Earth’s dwindling resources, environmental pollution, and global warming;
• emulating Mars enthusiasts Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, Bas Landorp, Elon Musk, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Arno Wielders, and Robert Zubrin. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Brilliant aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun shared his passion for Mars exploration via book with technical specs for a manned expedition, Das Marsprojekt, published in German in 1952 and in English translation in 1953.
Wernher von Braun welcomes visit on January 1, 1954, from Walt Disney: Dr. Braun served as technical director for three Disney Studio space exploration films in the 1950s.
Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Madison County, northeastern Alabama; January 1, 1954: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walt_Disney_and_Dr._Wernher_von_Braun_-_GPN-2000-000060.jpg

Some of human concerns about life on Mars include thinner atmosphere, weaker gravity, cosmic and solar radiation.
global mosaic of 102 Viking 1 Orbiter images of Mars taken February 22, 1980, at point perspective projected altitude of 1553 miles (2500 kilometers): Valles Marineris, Mars' largest canyon system (center)
Valles Marineris, largest Martian canyon system (center), and Tharsis Montes, three large shield volcanoes (center left to upper left): NASA/USGS, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_Valles_Marineris.jpeg

Despite atmospheric and other challenges, Mars is deemed as habitable for Earthlings through the process of terraforming ("Earth-shaping").
Rivers feeding hypothesized oceans in artist's conception of terraformed Mars occupy such prominent features as Valles Marineris (center), largest Martian canyon system, and lake fills Aram Chaos, impact crater at eastern end of Valles Marineris.
artist's conception of a terraformed Mars, approximately centered on prime meridian, 30 degrees north latitude: Daein Ballard, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TerraformedMarsGlobeRealistic.jpg

Mars' carbon dioxide rich atmosphere freezes at south polar ice cap into 3-feet thick layer atop permanent ice cap of water ice, sandwiched around thin layer of dark sand and dust; spring melt opens vents for trapped gas.
Artist concept shows sand-laden jets of carbon dioxide shoot into sky at Martian south polar ice cap as southern spring begins.
image credit Arizona State University/Ron Miller: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geysers_on_Mars.jpg

Signs of ancient life on Mars? Impact glass (created by meteor striking planetary surface) is found on 3-mile (5 km) central peak of 12-mile (15 km) wide Alga Crater in Mars' southern hemisphere.
color code based on data analysis: green = presence of glass; blues = pyroxene; reds = olivine
detection data from CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) instrument on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/University of Arizona, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIA19673-Mars-AlgaCrater-ImpactGlassDetected-MRO-20150608.jpg

"Your kids might live on Mars. Here's how they'll survive | Stephen Petranek" (17:14)
Uploaded May 5, 2016, by TED to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9c7aheZxls

Petranek, Stephan L. 2015. How We'll Live on Mars. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Simon & Schuster TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Books. 

Petranek, Stephen. February 2002. “10 Ways the World Could End.” TED.com > TED Talks > TED Conference. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_petranek_counts_down_to_armageddon 

 von Braun, Wernher. 1953. The Mars Project. Translated from the Original German Das Marsprojekt by Henry J. White. Urbana, IL, U.S.A.: University of Illinois Press.