The Torch Magazine

Mars Fever

by Charles Darling

"The first human footfalls on Mars will flag a momentous, historic milestone" wrote astronaut Buzz Aldrin and space journalist Leonard David in "Making Footfall on Mars" (91). In the next ten to thirty years, fulfilling a dream as old as the idea of space travel, at least one permanent base will be established on Mars. This essay studies symptoms of "Mars Fever": unmanned orbiters and landers, overcoming enormous planetary problems, space flight dangers, and eventual colonization of the fourth planet.

Early Symptoms

The first symptoms of "Mars Fever" occurred in 1877, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli tested the optics of an 8.6-inch refractor at the Royal Observatory in Milan on the fourth planet from the sun as its orbit approached close opposition to Earth. Schiaparelli's keen eye detected dark spots in the Tharsis shield (where Martian volcanoes were later catalogued in 1894 by Edward Emerson Barnard, using the 36-inch refractor of the Lick Observatory [Ferron 47]), but the bigger sensation when Schiaparelli published his findings the next year was the linear markings he dubbed "canali," or channels. English-speaking countries used the word "canals" to describe what Schiaparelli had seen, thus creating a frenzied interest in the planet Mars. What accounted for the "canals"?

Two years earlier, French astronomer Camille Flammarion had published La Planète Mars, which further encouraged belief in the possibility of life on Mars. Wealthy American Percival Lowell read that book, became convinced that intelligent beings inhabited the fourth planet, and built a 24-inch refractor at his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, ready for Mars' 1894 opposition. The next year his book, Mars, became a runaway best seller. Its unscientific premise, which Lowell held until his death in 1916, was that canals were constructed by highly intelligent beings in order to bring water from the poles to the remaining parched land. Science fiction took up the cause of intelligent Martians, giving us novels like H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds and Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars. In 1901, electrical genius Nikola Tesla claimed that he detected wireless signals from Mars. Unbelievably, Martian canals were still part of the official U. S. Air Force map until 1965 (Sheehan 51-53).

Sterile to Dynamic

Canals disappeared with the arrival of NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft in July, 1965, and Mariner 9's orbiter later. The green tints that many astronomers previously had described on Mars were due to telescopic aberrations or visual imagination. (I should know, since I saw white polar caps and an apparent hazy, green-colored land while peering into my home-made five inch reflector telescope while a student at Youngstown College.) With the debunking of these imagined features, the study of the Red Planet went through what Astrophysics Professor Gregory Benford calls "The Sterile Period." For thirty years Mars was equated to the moon—a lifeless, cratered, dust-covered sphere (Benford 56). But then, in 1997, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, in its nine year orbit, swept aside this bleak image of the red planet with 240,000 detailed pictures of the Martian surface, revealing regions with water-forming minerals, local magnetic fields, and varying terrain. Mars was no longer "sterile," but dynamic.

Since 1997 a bevy of spacecraft and landers have intensely studied the Red Planet, including NASA landers Pathfinder and Sojourner, twins Spirit and Opportunity, and Curiosity, as well as orbiters Odyssey, Reconnaissance, and Maven, Europe's Mars Express, and India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). Many have speculated that colonies, whether government or private ventures, will be established on Mars within ten to thirty years.

Problems

The enthusiasm is all too understandable, but as a place for human beings to live, Mars has serious problems. Its orbit is eccentric; it deviates from a circle by 9%, resulting in a 40% decline in sunlight at its farthest point from the sun. While seasons occur because of the tilt of its axis (currently 25.19o), the winter low range is –284 F., the short summer peaks at 84 F., and the overall average is –81 F., compared to Earth's +57 F. The atmosphere is thin and inhospitable to humans: 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, and less than 1% oxygen. With an air pressure equal to 1% of Earth's sea level pressure, an open bottle of water on Mars would evaporate faster than it would freeze. Dust devils and deadly dust storms that are the largest and longest in the solar system block sunlight and cause an even colder surface.

Mars has two faces: the heavily cratered southern highlands and the lowland north, which drops an average of five miles below the south's elevation. Steve Squyres of Cornell University believes a dwarf planet the size of Pluto or Ceres struck Mars, stripping away the northern crust and possibly causing its eccentric orbit; other scientists theorize that a young Mars had plate tectonics similar to Earth's, but because of its size it cooled rapidly, leaving the south with a frozen super-continent (Asphaug 68-71). Whatever the process, the northern basin once was filled with water since orbiters, such as Global Surveyor, reveal that ocean's dried sediments. The planet lacks a strong magnetic field that would shield it from the Sun's radiation, although it still has scattered remains of an early magnetic field. One final problem, which could turn out be a benefit, is a gravity 37.5% of Earth's. For golfers, shot putters, and pole-vaulters, the less gravity the better—all Earthling records will be shattered!

Ancient Mars: What Happened?

     Four and one-half billion years ago, Mars was one of as many as 100 planets newly formed around the sun. It was constantly bombarded by asteroids, comets, and proto-planets for at least 500 million years. Following the bombardment, planetary scientists believe, the southern highlands and northern lowlands were formed. Also, the molten interior of Mars had cooled off enough to end its global magnetic field, leaving only isolated localities that provided shielding from space radiation.

     Volcanism seemed to be the prominent feature between 500 million and three billion years ago. The region at the equator that astronomers named the Tharsis plateau contains five huge volcanoes, now thought to be extinct. They are the solar system's highest, rising nine to sixteen miles above "sea level," Olympus Mons being the tallest with an area the size of Arizona. Alba Mons, a smaller volcano, has a spread of magma the size of Alaska (Beatty 62-63).

     The Red Planet's canyon network, four times deeper than the Grand Canyon and lengthier than the distance from New York City to Los Angeles, was named Valles Marineris after its discovery by NASA's Mariner spacecraft. The canyon is thought to be "only" three billion years old. Geologists believe it resulted from crustal stress caused by Tharsis volcanism.

     Volcanic gases created a CO2-rich first atmosphere for Mars. The planet was warm with liquid water. Three powerful infra-red telescopes and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter confirmed that a body of water formed over a fifth of Mars' surface, mainly in the northern hemisphere, with a depth reaching 1.6 km (Guardian, March 13, 2015, 3). Images taken by Mars Odyssey revealed complex river networks that long ago flowed with water, their capacity rivaling that of those on Earth today. Later, the Reconnaissance's HiRISE camera recorded dark flows across the planet during summer months. However, the acidic nature of the soil destroyed much of the carbonate minerals formed when water reacted to rock in the carbon dioxide atmosphere. Scientists estimate that by 3.7 billion years ago, rains had stopped falling and surface water had frozen. Only the cracking of the ground created short-term flooding of the surface.

     Did this environmental shift make it impossible for life to evolve? That question remains to be answered. NASA's Curiosity rover has found liquid water just below the surface in the Gale crater, but Morten Bo Madsen, a Mars scientist at the University of Copenhagen, believes that the planet's cold, dry, solar radiated surface "is very hostile" to life forms (Guardian, April 24, 2015, 34-35). Nevertheless, in September of 2015, scientific analysis of changes on the Martian surface by the Orbiter satellite has led to the conclusion that salty water is flowing on Mars at least during the summer months.

Getting There

     Going to Mars would be much more difficult than landing on the Moon, but it would be absolutely essential if Earth were bombarded by an asteroid or comet the size of the one that wiped out the highest form of life 65 million years ago, the dinosaur. Some such catastrophe will happen, perhaps not in our lifetime, but eventually. Two chances for survival are better than one, and the colonization of Mars will lead to settlement on selected moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

     Options for the launch site of a manned mission to Mars are the Earth itself, the Moon, or a space station. Which would be chosen depends on the nation or company that is involved. In 2016, Jan Woerner, head of the European Space Agency, maintained that the Moon "is the next logical stepping stone" to a Mars mission (Guardian, October 7, 2016). Also possible is a combination of the International Space Station with China's upcoming low-Earth orbit station. Both Russian and American (and, presumably, Chinese) astronauts have been isolated in spacecraft mock-ups, preparing for the six-month trip to Mars. Since resupplies from Earth are impossible, life support systems that recycle air, water, and waste are vital, and all spaceship systems must be supported by redundant hardware to deal with system failure. In addition to the possibility of mental or physical health problems, the actual journey entails the danger of solar radiation and the bodily reaction to weightlessness, a problem could perhaps be overcome by the artificial gravity created by a rotating spacecraft.

     Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and others have a novel solution to the problem of a landing site. Using current space ship designs and propulsion systems like NASA's Orion module, humans could land on Phobos, the nearest moon, orbiting 3,700 miles above Mars. While the moon measures only seven by eleven miles, it whips around Mars three times in one day, facilitating communication. There a radiation-proof observation platform could control incoming laboratory and habitation modules without the twenty-minute time delay from an Earth control center. (Aldrin and David 95). Whatever solutions are chosen, mankind will finally colonize Mars.

Colonization

     Why colonize Mars? Besides the catastrophic inevitability outlined above, nationalistic tendencies in the United States, Russia, China, India, and elsewhere have reawakened interest in colonization. Even corporations might be in the race, for an additional motivation is Mars' location near the asteroid belt, a large number of rocks and dwarf planets from an apparent failed planet between Mars and Jupiter, some of which have been imaged by radio telescopes from Earth and by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe and the Galileo spacecraft, creating speculation that Martian bases could be employed to mine the nearby belt.

     The United States must be one of the nations that participate in "Mars Fever." The case is similar to the 1400 and 1500s when European nations began their oversea exploration and colonization.

     Since Mars is a rocky planet, formed much as Earth was, it can supply many valuable minerals such as diamonds, gold, silver, and platinum, while iron ore is known to be abundant. It also has larger quantities of heavy water than Earth, and NASA's rover Curiosity has measured the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in Mars' atmosphere to be five times that of Earth, the result of the lighter hydrogen atom (H2) escaping from the planet over time (Sky and Telescope, September, 2013, 22).

     A flat and crater free landing zone must be selected for safety. But such a surface lacks the varied features found in Martian mountain ranges and Valles Marineris canyons, which have a greater potential for finding mineral and life-creation substances for scientific research. The solution is costly but necessary—pressurized vehicles to carry both astronauts and their equipment. NASA's Ames Research Center has already charted a potential landing site in the Coprates Quadrangle near Valles Marineris (Aldrin and David 95-96). And before humans land on Mars, supplies must be ferried to the chosen landing site. Using the proposed moon base on Phobos, instant trajectory changes could land the equipment to within a few meters of the selected site.

     Martian settlers will face far more challenges than pioneers who traversed the vast grasslands of the western United States during the nineteenth century in search of land to raise cattle or grow food.   Martian air is 95% carbon dioxide, there are no flowing surface streams, and no known plant or animal life. Nevertheless, carbon dioxide can be broken down into breathable oxygen, while water can be pumped from below the surface. Moreover, the Rover surprised members of Mars Science Laboratory when it detected methane and other organic compounds within Gale crater (Sky, April, 2015, 14).

     Finally, vegetables could be grown in oxygenated hot houses, perhaps in areas where local magnetic fields would shield the plants from solar radiation, while the Sun's weaker rays on distant Mars would supplement a lighting system based on converting the CO2 atmosphere into a liquefied carbon monoxide and oxygen power source. Such a power could serve as a propellant for launching spacecraft on return trips to Earth. NASA expects to explore the Coprates Quadrangle region for potential human landing zones with its scheduled 2020 robotic mission.

     Human colonization is impossible without proper equipment to maintain life and explore the Martian terrain. Habitats need to be built with air locks and protection from solar radiation. The use of the numerous lava tunnels formed when volcanism was a part of the Martian landscape could offer radiation-proof housing. Furthermore, the scattered magnetic forces still on the planet, following the liquid core solidification, could extend solar protection to dwellings, laboratories, factories, etc. Unlike the Earth, Mars needs global warming. Pollution-emitting factories and mills, producing a hothouse effect, would create a denser and more life-conducive atmosphere. Sheet metals, pipes, and parts could be manufactured on Mars by additive manufacturing (3-D printing) using the planet's own supply of iron ore instead of relying on Earth shipments.

Conclusion

     "Mars Fever," whether born of nationalistic rivalry, economic greed, or simply a genetic survival mode, will result in colonization and exploitation of the Red Planet. But prominent Youngstown State University Astronomy Professor and Director of the Ward Beecher Planetarium Patrick Durrell cautioned, "There are a lot of issues to be resolved before we start talking about living there. But as far as the rest of the planets, it's our best bet." (The Vindicator, 9/30/15).

     Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and space journalist Leonard David summed up the significance of a human presence on Mars: "[It] is, in essence, an insurance policy. Not only is the survival of the human race more likely, but the ability to reach from Mars into the resource-rich bounty of the Martian satellites, nearby asteroids, and beyond becomes possible. [. . .] Earth isn't the only world for us anymore" (96-97).

     In a television interview in 2016, Michael Collins, 85-year-old former command pilot of the Apollo 11 spacecraft who remained in orbit as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon's surface in 1969, called his home planet "the fragile earth." As Collins viewed the Earth from moon orbit, he recalled that the planet appeared to be no larger than his thumbnail on his outstretched arm (Collins, C-Span interview). This fragility needs another place for human DNA to flourish. Mars will serve as first baby steps in humankind's reach for the stars, and later, galaxies, to "boldly go where no [human] has gone before."

Works Cited

Aldrin, Buzz, and David, Leonard. "Making Footfall on Mars." Carlisle, 91-97.

Asphaug, Erik. "The Halves of Mars." Carlisle, 68-71.

Beatty, J. Kelly. "A Day on Ancient Mars." Carlisle, 62-63.

Benford, Gregory. "Science Fiction's Fantasies and Realities." Carlisle, 54-57.

Carlisle, Camille M., ed. Mars: Mysteries and Marvels of the Red Planet. Sky & Telescope, 2014.

Collins, Michael. C-Span television interview, June, 2016.

Ferron, Karri. "The Red Planet's Colorful Past." Astronomy, August 2012, 44-49.

Guardian Weekly, March 13, 2015, 3; April 24, 2015, 34-35; October 7, 2016, 32.

Sheehan, William. "The Mars of Image & Dream." Carlisle, 50-53.

Sky & Telescope, August 2003, 114; April, 2015, 14; September 2013, 22.

The Vindicator (Youngstown, Ohio), September 30, 2015.

Author's Biography

     Charles W. Darling is Emeritus Professor of History at Youngstown State University. A member of the Ohio Academy of History and the history honorary society Phi Alpha Theta, Darling taught classes in the Vietnam War, American economic, and social and cultural history. He holds degrees from Youngstown College, Ohio University, and received additional training at Pennsylvania State University and Ohio State University. He is the author of two science fiction novels, Gamma Connection and Galactic End Game, and has just completed a prequel novelette to them called Mystery At Mars.

     He has been a member of the Youngstown Torch Club since the 1970s. Darling received the Paxton Lectureship Award at the IATC Convention in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 2009 for his paper "The Origins of American Involvement in Vietnam." In 2017, he published Lighting the Way; Torch Essays, collecting papers he presented at Torch Club meetings, most of which have been published in The Torch magazine, the most recent being "Railroads: Empire Builders," in the Fall 2016 issue.

     "Mars Fever" was presented at the Youngstown Torch Club on October 17, 2016.