Mars: Our New Outer Space Frontier

Since the beginning of time, humans have had an insatiable desire to explore. Curiosity is one of our greatest strength and it is seemingly what's responsible for the immense and exponential technological advancement we see today. As we become more populated, we seek more resources and places to live in. The space program comes into play here.

We've done all this on our little planet. Now imagine the things we could achieve with two planets at our disposal. The planned trip to Mars will most likely make that dream a reality. But wait, is it only Mars that exists in our solar system? Have you ever wondered why we chose Mars, our neighborhood planet, to live in? If so, let's find out why?

First, on making a list of probable habitable planets and taking other celestial bodies into consideration we can narrow them down to just three: Venus, Mars,  and Titan ( Saturn's own moon). Let's break it down and see why Mars is the most logical.

Venus: Almost perfect except for one horrifying characteristic.

It is the second closest planet to the sun. Many of its characteristics make it a perfect planet for habitation such as its density (which is almost the same as Earth's), it's the size and most importantly it had an atmosphere. Yes, it is one of the only two terrestrial planets (of which there are four) that have an atmosphere. But this is also where the problem lies. You see, having an atmosphere makes it suitable for life since most Cosmic hazards such as UV (Ultraviolet) rays are filtered off, having an atmosphere such as Venus's is not beneficial in the least and this is mainly due to its unbelievably thick atmosphere. As a result, the greenhouse effect is at an all-time high here. Also, it traps the heat received from the sun which exponentially increases its temperature and due to its the thick atmosphere, it doesn't radiate this heat as quickly as its first neighbor, Mercury ( since it doesn't even have an atmosphere, to begin with). This earns it the name of being the hottest planet in the Solar system even if it's not the closest to the sun.

As you can see aside from its similarity to Earth in terms of density, mass,  and size, its atmospheric condition and proximity to our sun make it unsuitable for human habitation.

Titan: Downright incredible though it's problem is too challenging for humanity at this moment

The only moon on this list. Yes,  Titan is one of Saturn's many moons but it's not just any moon, it is the most likely place for us to find the first extraterrestrial life in the Solar system. It is filled with ice, water, and methane. This is a tremendous ability in that it helps in the accommodation of any form of life sent there as oxygen can literally be created from its frozen components. This gives an endless supply of oxygen making adaptation to that environment a lot easier. Fortunately, it also has an atmosphere. But there's just one problem. It is about 1.4billion km away from earth. To show how incredible this distance is, Mars is just a mere 56.4million km and Venus is about 261million km from us. The sun is 149.6million km away. All those combined and it doesn't even reach the great distance between us and Titan. This makes going to Titan highly illogical as there are two factors that make the space program costly. Fuel and load. Currently, it takes about the same price of gold to transport 1kg of mass into space (about $10,000). Even after dealing with the matter of fuel, we still have to think about the time it takes to get there. Depending on the route taken, we can estimate how long it takes to get to Titan. For example, it took the New Horizon space probe two years to get to Titan. Surely the astronaut on board any spacecraft used to get there must eat. Though alternative methods are being thought about like the use of Cryogenic sleep or Cryosleep, it doesn't seem practical now. Cryosleep is simply (but in reality extremely difficult to implement) putting a human body in suspended animation by reducing the body's temperature to almost absolute zero. This is good and all but our current technology is far from achieving this.

Mars: The chosen one with a lot of faults.

The red planet, very similar to earth in size and also our friendly neighbor. It has been chosen for mankind first act of human colonization. Though it's faults are manageable (unlike those of Venus and Titan), it does have the most of the bunch. 

It doesn't have an atmosphere. Yes, Mars is a planet ridden with Cosmic radiation such as UV rays and Cosmic rays. 

It doesn't have an electromagnetic field. Earth's electromagnetic field is mainly due to the movement of its molten spinning core. For some reason, Mars has lost this property and therefore is not protected against outer space hazards such as solar flares or solar winds.

It has tornados. In fact, calling it tornados is somewhat demeaning. Scientist calls them Dust devils. They are high-rising tornados that can run over the surface of Mars for months. 

On the 6th of August 2012, The Mars Curiosity Rover landed successfully on Mars. It was sent to scout the red planet and look for life whilst understanding its terrain. Unfortunately, till today no sign of the life has been discovered (except maybe for extremophiles which are microorganisms that can live in extremely harsh conditions). This shows the difficulty of surviving on Mars but all the faults listed above can be tackled with effectively through intuitive thinking. It's proximity to us is still one of the major reasons (if not the only one) we decided to venture out to Mars. 

These three planets all have good characteristics and bad ones. But through it all, Mars stands out has been the most logical planet to go to. Space bodies such as NASA and SpaceX have begun preparation for a manned mission to Mars. Mars might be millions of kilometers away but it is in no way preventing the audacious personality of we humans to colonize the red planet.