Could Mars be made habitable by "restoring" its atmosphere? Maybe one day, but not in this lifetime, says Elon Musk . In the meantime, if our species wants to settle on Mars, it will therefore have to deal with the particularly brutal environmental conditions of the red planet, and probably live under glass domes.
Several billion years ago, Mars was surrounded by a thick atmosphere, like Earth. This "blanket" has since been torn from it by the solar wind, exposing the surface to brutal environmental conditions. Once hot and humid, the planet Mars is now only a desolate territory, dry, cold, and the air there is unbreathable.
To make it habitable again, a "terraforming" of the planet will thus be mandatory. In other words, it will be necessary to modify the natural characteristics of the planet so as tomake it as similar as possible to the Earth. And to do that, you have to "rebuild" its atmosphere. Concretely, it would then be a question of releasing carbon dioxide trapped in the Martian surface to thicken its very thin atmosphere which would then act as a blanket to warm the planet. However, is it really possible?
As part of a study published two years ago, astrobiologists had established that no. According to this work, Mars does not retain sufficient CO2 anymore to provide significant warming should this gas be transferred to the atmosphere. Also, most of that CO2 would be inaccessible to us anyway. .
Also, the researchers had concluded that transforming the Martian environment in such a way that astronauts can explore it without support is currently impossible without technology that exceeds by far our current capabilities .
Note that while Mars contains significant amounts of water ice that could be used to create water vapor, previous analyzes have shown that this water cannot provide significant warming by itself. Indeed, still according to the research team, Martian temperatures do not allow enough water to persist in the form of vapor, without first having a significant warming by CO2.
Thus, transforming Mars into Earth 2.0 is a still unattainable dream , and Elon Musk is well aware of this. Nevertheless, the CEO of SpaceX is still aiming for the red planet. It is this ambition that motivated the creation of the company in 2002. But then, how to go about it? A few days ago, one of Musk's followers asked him the question on Twitter. His answer:"We'll live under glass domes initially. And later she [the planet]will be terraformed to support life, like on Earth “.
Note that other Mars habitat projects have also been proposed in recent years. In 2018, a team of Swiss researchers from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), for example, unveiled a concept for a giant igloo made of polyethylene fibers and protected by three meters of ice. This would protect the occupants from cosmic rays that are harmful to the human body.
More recently, the company AI SpaceFactory has proposed tall and vertical structures called “Marsha”, made from basalt fibers (a rock found in on Mars).
Of course, we're not there yet. This Martian exploration will not be done. On the calendar, SpaceX plans to launch its first uncrewed mission to the Red Planet "in just four years “, Musk recently said. On the technical side, this mission will normally be launched aboard a Starship vehicle, a kind of gigantic reusable spacecraft.
