Written by contributor Marcin Zwierzchowski
Andy Weir is one of the Big Thinkers in the second season of National Geographic’s series “Mars”. We ask what the author of “The Martian” thinks about colonisation of the Red Planet and how would he do it?
Why should we go to Mars?
The canonical answer to that is: if all of humanity is on Earth, it’s possible – unlikely, but possible – that a single catastrophe can wipe us out. We could be rendered extinct by either a large meteor strike or a plague or a war; there are variety of things that can wipe out humanity right now, because we are all on one planet. If we’re on two planets the odds of us being wiped out by a single calamity are basically zero; if there is a plague on Earth, well maybe it won’t get to Mars. That’s the normal answer.
But I would say actually: until there is an economic incentive to go to Mars, it’s questionable whether we should send people. We are getting better and better at making robots and artificial intelligence. So whatever information we want to learn about Mars, we can do it remote.
Honestly I think the main benefit from sending astronauts to Mars, for exploration purposes, not colonisation, is that the human brain is the best computer we have right now. AI is not nearly as good. One geologist on the surface of Mars can do more in one day than all the probes that we have sent so far.
But there is also PR. “A man on Mars” sounds better than “a robot on Mars”.
What I personally believe is that if you’re really interested in the science of learning about Mars, the very best thing you should do is to make a bunch of remote-controlled rovers and then put a human on the orbit of Mars. Then you have basically zero latency connection. Because Mars is too far away to directly control things; Mars is between 5 and 20 light minutes away, so you can’t just remotely control a rover. The rover has to be intelligent. But if you have a human on the orbit of Mars you can do that.
And it’s safer and cheaper.
It’s safer, it’s cheaper and it’s a lot easier to get humans on the orbit around Mars and then back home, then it is to get them to the surface of Mars and back home. So having humans on orbit, controlling robots on the ground, you have functionally the same as having a human on the ground. It’s like a VR presence. Though it’s not as exciting.
Yeah, “the first person almost on Mars” hasn’t has a ring to it.
We’ve sent people on the orbit of the Moon before we’ve send people on the surface. Apollo 8 put people into orbit.
Wasn’t it because then we didn’t have the technology to put people on the surface?
It was a part of the process. Just saying: okay, if we are going to put people on the Moon, let’s first confirm that we can send people there and back. Apollo 8 went to the Moon, orbited it I think 10 times and then went back. So they proved that they can get something into stable lunar orbit, stay there, and then come back. Knowing that we can do that, we can talk about having that happen, and then having something leave that ship and go to the surface.
It’s just my opinion, that we should have people on the orbit of Mars. And it’s not like it’s something that anybody hasn’t thought off. It all depends on your objective. If your objective is to learn more about the science of Mars, then the way to do that is humans on orbit controlling robots on the ground. But if your long-term goal is to colonise Mars and have humans permanently living there, well then obviously you need to figure out how to get humans down there.
The second season of the TV series “Mars” really strongly asks the question should we go to the Red Planet. Because we are really awful on Earth.
I don’t buy into pessimism about human nature. I think humans are pretty good. I think it’s very easy to feel bleak about humanity. But remember it makes news when a person is bad to other people, but it doesn’t make news when a person is good. Because that’s presumed. The default human behavior is that we are helpful and very cooperative. So it’s newsworthy when we’re not and it’s normal when we are. So when you watch the news you get this very pessimistic view.
I also think that we continuously get better and better as time goes forward. Earth is a better place to be as times go forward. Would you rather live today or a hundred years ago? And if I would say that you have to choose a date at least a hundred years ago, would you rather live at 1918 or at 1818? You would always choose the most forward ahead date, because humanity just keeps getting better. And there’s no reason for that to stop. So I think the future will be better than now. An when people will be asked if they want to live in 2018 or 2118, they will choose the latter.
Does Mars have a potential to be like Earth? Or will people there have to always live in those domes?
It’s certainly possible to terraform Mars. It’s well beyond our technology level right now. Though technically it could be possible with our current technology, but among other things it would take centuries.
The thing is all you have to do to terraform Mars is to heat it up a little. There’s a lot of carbon dioxide ice at the poles. If you heat that up, you add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and you start a runaway greenhouse effect. So the thing that is causing problems for us here on Earth is the exact thing you would need on Mars. If you melt enough of the carbon dioxide and it gets into the atmosphere, that will trap sunlight, which will increase the temperature, which will help releas more carbon dioxide, and you end up with a nice thick atmosphere. It should trap the heat inside and would make the water run liquid again. And you would be set.
That part we could probably almost do with our modern technology. The hard part would be maintaining the oxygen percentage. That is something that happens on Earth because we have a very well buffered biosphere here, mainly by oceanic algae. The percentage of Earth’s atmosphere that is oxygen is at 21%. And if it goes just a little bit lower than that, then more plants grow and it goes back to it. And if it goes just a bit higher, than a bunch of plants die and it’s back to normal. Humans are very, very sensitive to the amount of oxygen. If you would bring it down to 19% you’d start to suffer from suffocation. If you will bring it to 23% you would be burning out your lungs with oxygen narcosis.
But it’s not something that we control.
Because we don’t have to, the planet does it by itself.
So how to do it on Mars if we’re not doing it on Earth?
Good question. That’s the technology that’s way beyond us right now. You would have to engineer life-forms, like algae, specific to Mars, that would buffer the atmosphere.
But terraforming is something that is many, many centuries away. I definitely believe that people will live on Mars long before anybody will terraform it.
And as the author of “The Martian” and “Artemis” (which take place on the Moon), what is your take on the question whether we should go to the Mars, or go back to the Moon first?
That’s a big debate. I believe it depends on what you want to do. If you want to put human beings in the place that they have never been before – then Mars, obviously. Then you will know more about Mars. Because we know a lot about the Moon. In fact we know more about the surface of the Moon that we know about the surface of the oceans on Earth.
In terms of colonisation I definitely think that the Moon is first.
It would be easier, safer and cheaper to get there.
Much easier. First of, the Moon is close enough to Earth that if you have a serious problem with your society, than Earth can help you out.
“The Martian” on the Moon would be like 1/3 of the actual book.
Well, yeah. It would be like: You’re stuck on the moon? We’ll come and get you.
In “Artemis” I wrote about a permanent civilisation there and one of their main source of income is tourism. Because you can get there easily from Earth. And also Moon is rather conveniently orbiting Earth, so it’s always the same distance away. It’s very, very close. If you would imagine an American football field – if Earth is at one goal line and Mars is at the other, then the Moon would be about 4 inches in front of you. That is the difference in scale.
The Moon is so easy to get to that it is likely, that within a generation or two it will be cheap enough to go to the Moon, that middle-class people can afford to do it. Like a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.
So I could go to the Moon?
You could. It would cost you like a $100,000, so you would have to get a second mortgage on your house, but you could. And just having that market available, so having people to be able to go to the Moon, will mean that people will go to the Moon. And that would drive the creation of the city, etc.
I asked you earlier and you said you wouldn’t go to Mars. But would you go to the Moon?
[A long pause and hesitation]
You said it would be easier…
Yeah. But I don’t know. It’s a good question.
Well not now, but in about 20 years? When they will be good at it.
Let’s put it this way: in the fictional setting of “Artemis” it’s very safe to go to the Moon. It’s like air travel. So I might be willing to go. I don’t want to take part in anything that involves today’s technology. “Artemis” takes place in 2084.
