Two new studies have been released that illustrate that the dry Martian lakebed that is currently being explored by NASA’s Curiosity rover was home to a habitable environment for over 700 million years, and possibly for well over a billion years.
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Part of the problem of long-distance manned space voyages is that of the amount of consumables that would need to accompany the astronauts on their journey would add a significant amount of mass to the ship spacecraft, requiring more fuel for the trip to haul the extra food, water, etc., with that fuel adding yet even more weight to the craft — needless to say, sending humans to another planet would be a resource-expensive endeavor. One solution often used in science fiction is to place the space travelers into suspended animation, typically in a state of biological suspension akin to a deep sleep.
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One of the major roadblocks our culture has in regards to space travel is that in order to travel at speeds that could make a trip to a distant planet or star in a reasonable time frame is the application of energy: currently, we’re stuck burning chemical fuel to propel our vehicles, of which means also lugging that fuel along with the vehicle, meaning the vehicle weighs more because of the extra fuel, meaning the vehicle has to carry more fuel to offset that weight — it unfortunately becomes a cycle of inefficiency, making for a very slow vehicle.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced their plans for colonizing Mars, of which includes plans for permanent ‘Earth Independent’ settlements that would be capable of operating for extended missions with little or no material support needed from Earth.
Their report, entitled ‘Journey to Mars’, outlines NASA’s 3-stage plan for developing the path for the long-term colonization of Mars, with the goal of landing a human presence there sometime in the 2030s.
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