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00:00 From ancient Babylon, Egypt, and Greece to modern times, Mars has fascinated those who
00:05 observe the cosmos.
00:07 Mars is the closest planet to ours, making it the next great frontier after the 1969
00:12 moon landing.
00:13 But despite promises from governments and billionaires, progress on Martian exploration
00:17 has been slow in recent years.
00:19 Will we ever take the next great step in space exploration?
00:23 Can we?
00:24 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question; will life on Mars
00:29 ever be possible?
00:31 Do you need the big questions answered?
00:32 Are you constantly curious?
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00:37 And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
00:41 To answer this question, we need to identify the major hurdles standing between humanity
00:46 and the Red Planet.
00:47 The most immediate problem is diminishing public support for space exploration.
00:52 According to the Pew Research Centre, 69% of Americans in 2023 believe that the US should
00:57 be a leader in space exploration.
00:59 While that's high, it's down 3% from 2018.
01:03 And space exploration has never been a top priority for voters, who generally have more
01:08 earthly concerns.
01:09 In 2019, another Pew poll found that roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that NASA
01:14 should focus more on climate change than on space exploration.
01:18 That sentiment was shared by former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.
01:23 Why then should we even care about Mars?
01:26 First, it's hard to overstate the significant technological and scientific advances a concerted
01:31 Mars shot could produce.
01:33 The Apollo missions to the moon, for example, represented huge leaps forward in technology.
01:38 The technologies developed for Apollo missions have affected everything from footwear to
01:43 firefighting.
01:44 They discovered new construction materials and load-bearing methods.
01:48 NASA scientists pioneered solar panels, cordless power tools and digital imaging tech now used
01:54 in medical scanners like MRIs.
01:56 Their tremendous impact on our day-to-day lives has been immeasurable, permeating every
02:01 aspect of modern technology.
02:03 A Mars mission could do the same in the 21st century, ushering in a new era of consumer
02:08 and industrial technologies.
02:10 Biologists believe that studying Martian history could help us understand life on Earth and
02:15 elsewhere in the cosmos.
02:16 That same 2023 Pew poll saw more than half of Americans excited about space tourism.
02:22 Finally, there is no way to quantify the economic potential of space mining.
02:28 Mars is the closest planet in the solar system to the asteroid belt.
02:31 NASA has claimed that the mineral and rare element wealth contained within the belt is
02:35 equivalent to around $100 billion for every individual on Earth.
02:40 The installation of a Martian mining base could lead to a 21st century gold rush.
02:44 A sobering but glaring fact remains, however.
02:47 Even if the human race drummed up the collective willpower to explore and colonise Mars, there
02:52 are two major practical obstacles.
02:54 The first is its distance from the Earth.
02:57 On a cosmic scale, Mars is our closest neighbour - just one door over, so to speak.
03:02 On a human scale, well, close is a relative term.
03:06 In truth, the average distance between Mars and Earth is 140 million miles.
03:10 With our current technology, a one-way trip to Mars takes about six and a half months.
03:16 That means that if something were to go wrong with a Mars mission, there's very little
03:19 help available for our astronauts.
03:21 Worse, outside of Earth's magnetosphere, astronauts are exposed to solar radiation,
03:27 which can penetrate spacecraft and spacesuits.
03:30 The longer the trip to Mars, the more exposed astronauts are to harmful solar winds.
03:35 While we're currently working on countermeasures, we don't yet have a definitive answer.
03:39 To make Mars colonisation feasible, we need to significantly cut down on that travel time.
03:45 Fortunately, there are plans in the works to get us there faster.
03:49 And teams around the world are working on new propulsion systems that, if successful,
03:53 could potentially open up our entire solar system to exploration.
03:58 At the start of 2023, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, or NIAC, division approved
04:04 14 new propulsion concepts for Phase One development.
04:08 In the summer of 2023, NASA announced a new partnership with DARPA and defence contractor
04:13 Lockheed Martin.
04:15 The organisations are going to design and build a nuclear-powered rocket.
04:19 A nuclear-powered engine could be three times more efficient than a standard chemical rocket.
04:24 Projections cut a six-to-seven-month odyssey with a chemical rocket down to just a 45-day
04:28 jaunt with a nuclear engine.
04:31 NASA hopes to put a working prototype into space by 2025.
04:35 Private companies, too, are getting in on the alternative propulsion market.
04:39 Evo Limited is partnering with SpaceX to launch and test their electric quantum drive in October
04:44 of 2023.
04:45 If successful, they could rewrite what we know about the laws of physics, creating thrust
04:50 without propellant.
04:52 The last and most daunting barrier to colonising Mars is that the Red Planet is a dead planet.
04:58 Mars is arid, rocky, and cold.
05:00 The Martian atmosphere, such as it exists, is over 100 times thinner than ours.
05:05 The average temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and Martian gravity
05:10 is just over one-third of standard Earth gravity.
05:13 Those are workable problems, but when you factor in the lack of liquid water and a lack
05:18 of oxygen, Mars appears to be less than hospitable.
05:22 To be clear, there is water on Mars, in the form of ice, especially at the poles.
05:27 Studies have also discovered ice sequestered underneath the Martian surface.
05:31 While we don't yet have technologies needed to extract and thaw that ice, NASA is hopeful.
05:36 They hold a yearly competition for university science departments called "Mars Ice Challenge".
05:41 They're optimistic that emerging technologies will make ice mining a feasible solution.
05:46 The atmosphere, though, is a trickier problem.
05:49 The Martian atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide.
05:52 There is virtually no oxygen to speak of - bad for humans - and very little nitrogen - bad
05:57 for plants.
05:58 On top of that, because the air pressure is so low, colonists would have to live in pressurised
06:03 habitats.
06:04 There is a debate among scientists and engineers about the ethics of how to deal with these
06:08 issues.
06:09 Some advocate for exploring and colonising space in situ, adapting ourselves to the environment.
06:15 Others say that sustainable colonisation requires terraforming, or adapting the planet to our
06:21 needs.
06:22 NASA is currently working on options for both.
06:24 For example, NIAC has partnered with TechShot Incorporated to create sealed biodomes for
06:29 in situ colonisation.
06:32 Using screw mechanisms to mine subsurface ice for water, they would deploy large colonies
06:37 of oxygen-producing cyanobacteria and algae.
06:41 This way, colonists could have a sustainable source of oxygen.
06:45 Terraforming is a more complicated matter.
06:47 We would need to essentially create a liveable atmosphere from scratch by triggering a greenhouse
06:51 effect.
06:52 Filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gases would both thicken it and warm the planet.
06:57 Elon Musk once proposed nuking Martian poles to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
07:03 The problem is that Mars likely doesn't naturally have enough of those compounds to
07:07 terraform the planet completely.
07:10 Scientists have proposed importing ammonia, methane, or other hydrocarbons from planetary
07:14 bodies within the solar system.
07:17 The practicality of those plans is dubious, given current technology.
07:20 However, with upgraded propulsion systems, it would be much easier to travel to various
07:25 moons and asteroids to extract those elements and transport them.
07:29 Another slightly more feasible plan would be the importation of fluoride compounds,
07:34 like PFCs and CFCs.
07:36 These compounds have more bang to the greenhouse buck than CO2 and ammonia.
07:41 Generating 170 kilotons of fluoride compounds per year could get us where we need within
07:46 a decade.
07:47 This could be achieved either by bombarding the planet with PFC and CFC rockets, or by
07:52 local mining efforts.
07:54 If we managed any of these complex terraforming schemes, though, all that work to create a
07:59 habitable environment would be undone by solar radiation.
08:03 Current research suggests that at some point in the distant past, Mars was a warmer, wetter
08:07 world with an Earth-like atmosphere.
08:09 But along the way, the Martian magnetosphere died, and solar winds wiped its atmosphere
08:15 away.
08:16 Without a magnetic field to protect the planet, any atmosphere we create would be temporary.
08:21 And without protection from solar radiation, astronauts, explorers, scientists, and colonists
08:26 are all at increased long-term risk for cancer.
08:30 As of now, the technology to give a planet a magnetic field is well beyond our abilities.
08:35 However, NASA's former chief scientist, Jim Green, has devised a plan for that.
08:39 He's proposed erecting an artificial magnetosphere at the L1 Lagrange point between Mars and
08:45 the sun.
08:46 Due to the distance, it could be much smaller than a planet's magnetic field and still
08:50 shield Mars.
08:52 With that magnetic shield in place, the atmosphere would stabilise and start to slowly terraform.
08:56 On its own.
08:58 Without any further intervention, the air pressure and temperature would both significantly
09:02 increase over time.
09:04 President John F. Kennedy announced America's moonshot in his famous 1962 speech, saying
09:10 that "we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because
09:15 they are easy, but because they are hard."
09:19 The fact is, in terms of difficulty, colonising Mars makes travelling to the moon look like
09:24 child's play.
09:25 The obstacles are as substantial as the potential rewards.
09:29 In a world contending with climate change, layered on top of our day-to-day concerns,
09:33 it's easy to dismiss Mars exploration as a pipe dream.
09:37 But while their work may not always make headlines, many scientists around the world are still
09:42 making strides towards that goal.
09:45 They are slowly, quietly, developing the technologies needed to make humanity a multi-planetary
09:51 species.
09:52 This colonisation would require a tremendous investment of money, effort, and hope.
09:58 If humanity can come together with a common goal and a common dream, one day, life on
10:04 Mars may very well be possible.
10:07 What do you think?
10:08 Is there anything we missed?
10:10 Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
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