WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET HUMANS TO MARS?
When it's time to leave planet Earth, what will it take for humans to get to Mars?
Did you know that, as of 2020, only three people have died in space? Yes, we have unfortunately lost almost 20 astronauts and cosmonauts to in-flight accidents, but only those three Russians were beyond the Kármán line.
That also means that every other human was born, lived and died within Earth's atmosphere. It makes you wonder then why we haven't taken better care of the planet then. The pending Armageddon will be here before we know it.
That's why the players in the latest space-race have many humans extremely excited. It's not just about the moon, this time, it's a race to Mars. These billionaires, like Space-X's Elon Musk, are pumping funds into research and development to equipment that will get us there.
Once we're on the Red Planet, what happens next? This is where many other companies are also getting involved, finding ways to use the environment to make colonisation easier. Like the guys at AI Space Factory, who have developed Martia, a 3D-printed living unit that looks like an egg, but uses the Martian soil as the material for printing the structure.
Martia is a four-story house, with an airlocked entrance on the ground floor, and a common room with a kitchen and dining room on the first story. The sleeping quarters and "sanitation pod" on the second floor, and a family/exercise room is at the top with a large skylight to allow sunlight into the unit.
To be honest, this technology could be used to make low-cost housing on Earth, but there's probably no point to that because, well, Armageddon. The space-race may be looking to the skies, but the technology and ideas around colonising Mars may inadvertently solve some of the issues we have on our own planet.
Claire Reilly from CNET on YouTube delves deeper into the race to Mars in this episode of Hacking The Apocalypse, and everything else that comes with it. So hit play on the video below and be amazed at the future of travel.