I suppose, more or less, you already know the roadmap. At least the one Elon Musk follows. And if you don't remember it, in case you want to set it as a reminder on your phone. By the end of next year, humanity will inaugurate the first unmanned missions to Mars. By 2029, we will send the first humans. And starting in 2030, with a fleet of 1,000 spacecraft, we will start permanent settlements, so that in 20 or 30 years, we can have a city of one million inhabitants on the red planet. However, cartoonist Zach Weinersmith and his wife Kelly, a parasitologist, now intend to rain on the South African magnate's parade and, incidentally, on all of humanity.
The Weinersmiths have done their calculations, and where Elon Musk sees decades, they see centuries, not to mention that maybe we haven't thought very well about Mars: "Leaving Earth two degrees warmer to go to Mars would be like leaving a messy room to live in a toxic waste dump," they say. "Space is so dreadful that, to be a better option than Earth, it will not be enough with just one catastrophe. Planet Earth, with climate change and nuclear wars and (who knows) zombies and werewolves roaming around, is still much more habitable than Mars."
These space party poopers base everything on A City on Mars. Can we colonize space? Should we do it? Have we really thought it through? (Blackie Books), which arrives in bookstores tomorrow. A reality check on space colonization. A mockery of technoutopianism. The only popular science book that does not seek to convince us that space expansion is just around the corner. Even a self-help book: "How we became space jerks... and how you can become one too."
Part of the blame for how we have reached such a degree of optimism about founding a multiplanetary human race can be attributed to our own nature, but also to Elon Musk. After all, the magnate has a bunch of guys on his payroll who know a lot about this. However, the Weinersmiths, who don't know much, have started reading the fine print of our Martian contract, and have found insurmountable obstacles from the six-month, 225 million-kilometer one-way trip. It is true that space exploration has been based on the suffering of pioneers, or ask Laika, but we are talking about going to Mars this decade when no one, literally no one, has spent more than 437 consecutive days off Earth.
That was 30 years ago, and so far no one has dared to repeat Valeri Poliakov's feat, whose consequences were muscle and bone mass loss, decalcification, cardiovascular problems, and immune system suppression. Gravity causes a transfer of fluids to the upper body, reducing the liquid volume in the legs. The result is what a scientific article described as the "bread face and wire legs syndrome." The act of walking, from a bone perspective, is a constant banging back and forth. The body has adapted to this circumstance, but it is quite stingy. What is not used (including muscles and bones) is discarded. Half of those who spent some time on the International Space Station also returned to Earth with nearsightedness. Everything that can happen after day 437 is still a mystery.
And yet Mars is, by far, the most welcoming location for space settlements in the known universe. We are talking about an average surface temperature of -60 °C. There is no breathable air, but plenty of dust storms that obscure the sun for weeks, and abundant radiation, whose effects were described so well by botanist Mark Watney in The Martian: "Mars has no defense against solar radiation. If I were exposed to it, I would get cancer; even my cancer would get cancer." This is particularly concerning when middle-aged professionals spend a year in orbit, but when talking about colonies, we are also talking about children.
Thus, the most likely Martian settlements will not be glass domes, but reused underground lava tunnels supplied with breathable air and drinkable water. To ensure the survival of a million people would require a monumental structure, excellent insulation, huge amounts of electricity in a scenario with barely any solar light to harness, and an artificial ecosystem to sustain all its inhabitants. Are we capable of creating something like this? The largest system of this kind created to date is Biosphere 2, in the 1990s, where we managed to keep eight people alive for two meager years in a 1.2-hectare greenhouse in Arizona, where semi-wild chickens refused to lay eggs and were often devoured by pigs. After a year, the humans, who had been surviving on half-ripe bananas and unpleasant-tasting beans used for feed cultivation, emerged emaciated and hungry.
And now let's talk about colonizing. The gravity on Mars is 38% of Earth's. "Earth mothers worry about things like eating raw fish or having a beer. Now tell me what they would think about losing 1% of bone density per month while spending several hours each day doing resistance exercises in a highly radioactive and carbon dioxide-laden environment far from Earth's gravity. We are not saying things cannot go well, but we wouldn't bet much on it either. The long-term effects of low gravity on human biology do not bode well," point out the Weinersmiths.
At this point, we know nothing about sex in space, but we do know that fluids, far from our gravity, do not flow in the right direction. But let's imagine that we are even capable of spending ten years adapting to Mars' gravity, and even getting pregnant with artificial wombs. Could we return to Earth? We don't know that either, especially if those ten years started counting the day we were born.
-It's impossible not to think of the mutants in Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
-I suspect the mutations we will see on Mars won't resemble those in Total Recall. Rather, space radiation could simply cause more cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The thing is, in Total Recall, there is also a scene where the villain running the company threatens the citizens' lives by depriving them of oxygen. We have spoken with academics who are very concerned about these kinds of things, as whoever controls the oxygen supply could use it to control the colonists' behavior," explain the Weinersmiths to this newspaper.
-But don't you think someone on Earth should embody the Transhumanism proposed by Elon Musk?
-There are no laws determining who can go where, or rules about how long you can stay in a place once you have settled in a habitat. This framework seems designed to start a territory race, where you simply settle and never leave, which would also prevent others from using it.
The result, as the Weinersmiths explain, will be a private space bastardocracy, composed of magnates Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson, monopolizing Martian real estate long before superpowers settle there. In addition, the Weinersmiths do not believe that they will bring immense wealth, new independent nations, or a second home for humanity; not even a bunker for select elites. "How would democracy work in a society where air is rationed under the control of a private company?", the Weinersmiths wonder.
Space enthusiasts like to quote science fiction writer Larry Niven, who said: "Dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct for not having a space program, we'll deserve it." So, should humanity embark on the process of settling in space simply because that way we are less vulnerable to species extinction? Stephen Hawking liked this argument. Elon Musk likes this argument. "But we're not so sure anymore," say the Weinersmiths.
Space settlements, far from embodying a new utopian world, would likely replicate the conflicts and divisions of terrestrial societies: "Humans, after all, remain humans," Kelly reminds us. "The more capable we are of doing things in space, the greater our ability to annihilate ourselves. Our ability to harm ourselves far exceeds our ability to protect ourselves. Not even interplanetary war will be necessary: terrorism will be enough."
"Well, they've already demotivated me about space colonization, and I'm a space geek. Now what? What's the next step?"
"The remaining problems to solve are fascinating. Closed-loop ecosystems! Legal structures for the entire solar system! Artificial wombs! Most of the problems to solve for achieving a space settlement are objectively amazing, and things that would help humans here on Earth, even if we never reach Mars. But we believe that the realistic approach to space settlement is much more interesting than the fantasy sold in much of the discourse. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, one of the fathers of space aeronautics, wrote in 1911: "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live forever in the cradle." If our plan is to leave the planet, it's better that we do so as adults. Let's dedicate the years of childhood and adolescence to learning, and then set out in search of new horizons."