Future Martian colonists will have to eat a vegan diet, according to a study of Elon Musk’s plans for a colony on the Red Planet, due to limited resources.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, in part to turn humanity into a multiplanetary species, with rockets that could allow a stable colony on Mars.
The billionaire provided details of a future Martian settlement, including the idea of ”glass domes” to act as temporary habitats while the planet is terraformed, and the use of hydroponic farms to produce fruits and vegetables for settlers.
As the Mars rocket, Starship, appears increasingly likely to make its first orbital test flight this year, with plans to travel unmanned to the Red Planet in 2024, experts are beginning to consider exactly what it would take for humans to settle on Mars.
John K. Strickland of the National Space Society wrote an essay for the Space Review examining the problem, proposing to halve the number of people the domes can withstand if they also need meat and fish, compared to a vegan diet.
He suggested that a colony of about 5,000 people on a plant-based diet could be maintained by a 0.3-square-mile farm spread over four levels, taken to Mars by Starship.
Future Martian colonists will have to eat a vegan diet, according to a study into Elon Musk’s plans for a colony on the Red Planet, due to limited resources. Artist impression
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, in part to turn humanity into a multiplanetary species, with rockets that could allow a stable colony on Mars
SpaceX is not the only agency targeting humans on Mars, with China and the United States hoping to reach the Red Planet by the end of the 2030s.
This is not even the only agency with a long-term goal to create a civilization on Mars, as this is something that the United Arab Emirates also outlines as a future plan, but SpaceX may be the most ambitious and fastest schedule.
Musk had earlier outlined plans to send the first unmanned starship, complete with cargo and autonomous vehicles, by 2024 and the first crew by 2026.
Its long-term goal is to have a fully self-sustaining city that will thrive on Mars by 2050.
“If we can make life on Mars self-sustaining, we will go through one of the biggest filters. That then makes us interstellar, “Musk wrote on Twitter.
“Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, but life is not yet multiplanetary and it is extremely uncertain how much time is left to become one,” he explained.
As the Mars rocket, Starship, appears increasingly likely to make its first orbital test flight this year, with plans for its unmanned voyage to the Red Planet in 2024, experts are beginning to consider exactly what it would take for humans to settle on Mars
SpaceX isn’t the only agency with its sights set on landing humans on Mars, with China and the US both hoping to reach the Red Planet by the end of the 2030s
STARSHIP: ELON MUSK’S ‘BIG F***ING ROCKET’
The BFR (Big F *** ing Rocket), now known as the Starship, is a fully resilient rocket that Elon Musk hopes to use to build cities on Mars.
The CEO of SpaceX said the rocket would take its first trip to the Red Planet in 2024, carrying only cargo, followed by a manned mission in 2026, and said other SpaceX products would be “cannibalized” to pay for it.
Once built, Musk believes the rocket can be used to travel the Earth – he says passengers will be able to get anywhere in less than an hour.
To date, the Starship series of missiles has undergone 9 test flights – some have led to successful long-distance jumps, while others have led to explosions or emergency landings.
The latest experimental launch – including the Starship SN15 prototype – took place on 5 May 2021 and saw the ship complete a 33,000-foot high-altitude flight test in low clouds, complemented by a successful climb, engine shutdown, maneuver. inversion, valve control and soft touch.
A small fire did break out at the base of the rocket after it landed, but was later extinguished.
The big filter is one of the proposed solutions to Fermi’s paradox, which calls into question where all intelligent life in the universe is, given how likely they must be.
It says that intelligent life forms must go through a number of critical steps, from the formation to the development of modern technology, which ends with the colonization of another world before there is any chance of being discovered by other species.
Humanity is currently at an advanced stage of technology, but we have not yet colonized another planet in the solar system, let alone other star systems.
Musk says Mars is the first big step toward this eventual goal, and his initial vision included domes. Many domes, each connected to each other.
During this first stage of colonization, people living on Mars will have to get used to a vegan diet, but “the next really big thing is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and bring animals and creatures to Earth.” Musk told Time.
“Something like a futuristic Noah’s Ark. We will bring more than two, however – a little strange if there are only two. ‘
Strickland writes that Musk’s goal will take about 5,000 trips by Starship, each carrying 200 tons of cargo before food can be produced.
Once all the equipment arrives, food production can begin, and Strickland says the growing area is about 2,000 square feet and requires 100 kW of power per person.
This means that for an initial construction team of about 100 people, Musk will have to plan 10 megawatts of power and 215,000 square feet of growing area.
He estimated that an area of about a million square feet, spread over four equal floors, would be enough to feed up to 5,000 people on a vegetarian diet.
The amount of structure to keep this pressure area lit and at the right temperature will be in the thousands of tons, so the production of structural metals and plastics from local materials on Mars will be needed quite quickly as the base and the settlement, Strickland explained in his essay.
He said a significant amount of electricity would be needed to support 5,000 people – somewhere in the 500-megawatt area.
One land and a 500-megawatt power plant would be enough to power at least 50,000 homes, but probably many more. However, this does not include the industry and food production that every plant on Mars should maintain.
“A lot of energy will also be needed to produce fuel,” Strickland said, referring to the need to produce energy for vehicles and return.
“Energy will have to come from fission, fusion or cosmic solar grids, as there are no fossil fuels on Mars, and raising huge terrestrial solar grids in the dimmer sunlight on Mars would be very difficult.”
The billionaire provided details of a future Martian settlement, including the idea of “glass domes” to act as temporary habitats while the planet is terraformed, and the use of hydroponic farms to produce fruits and vegetables for settlers. Impression of the artist
John K. Strickland of the National Space Society wrote an essay for the Space Review examining the problem, proposing to halve the number of people the domes can withstand if they also need meat and fish, compared to a vegan diet. Impression of the artist
MARS: THE BASICS
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, with an “almost dead” dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere.
Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes and evidence that it has been even more active in the past.
It is one of the most studied planets in the solar system and the only planet humans have sent to explore rovers.
One day on Mars takes just over 24 hours, and one year is 687 Earth days.
Facts and figures
Orbital period: 687 days
Area: 144.8 million km
Distance from the sun: 227.9 million km
Gravity: 3721 m / s
Radius: 3,389.5 km
Moons: Phobos, Deimos
However, some of this energy can be used to support geologists looking for mineral sites that could be used to build building materials.
“Geologists could invest a huge area around the base or settlement with pressure rovers, possibly discovering mineral deposits of great benefit to the settlement,” Strickland wrote.
“Because Mars is a naturally cold planet, with groundwater and volcanism for most of its geological history, it will have most of the common rock-forming minerals the Earth has, but not as many concentrated ores and they may be solid. . to find. ‘
He suggests that instead of working alone, NASA should cooperate with SpaceX-led efforts, as this would allow resources to come together around a single object.
Strickland writes that with the growth of the settlement of Mars, it will become increasingly important in the minds of people on Earth, becoming a second home for humanity.
“The settlers would have a very good reason to terraform Mars, because their descendants could really go out without even wearing an oxygen mask,” he said.
Terraforming is a process of changing the geology of the planet to make it coincide with that of the Earth and make it an environment in which humans can survive.
Earlier, Musk suggested sending nuclear weapons to crash into Mars as a way to cause a greenhouse effect and help create a denser atmosphere.
However, he does not believe that this is viable in the short term, as it will take hundreds, thousands of years to create an Earth-like ecosystem.
That’s why the push for dome-based cities that allow people to stay safe while living on the surface of another world.
“Life on Earth is of immeasurable value, so a good backup location, open to Mars, is certainly a great goal for humanity,” Strickland said.
NASA plans to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s after first landing on the Moon
Mars has become the next giant leap for space exploration by mankind.
But before humans reach the Red Planet, the astronauts will take a series of small steps by returning to the moon for a one-year mission.
Details of a mission in lunar orbit have been revealed as part of the chronology of events leading up to missions to Mars in the 2030s.
NASA has outlined its four-stage plan (pictured), which it hopes will one day allow people to visit Mars at the People to Mars Summit in Washington yesterday. This will lead to many missions to the moon in the coming decades
In May 2017, Greg Williams, NASA’s deputy assistant administrator for policy and plans, outlined the space agency’s four-step plan, which he hopes will one day allow people to visit Mars, as well as the expected time frame.
Phases one and two will involve multiple trips to lunar space to enable the construction of a habitat that will provide a place to travel.
The last hardware delivered will be the actual spacecraft, which will later be used to transport the crew to Mars.
And a one-year simulation of life on Mars will be conducted in 2027.
Phases three and four will begin after 2030 and will include long-distance crew expeditions to the Martian system and the surface of Mars.