Livin' it up… In Space?

Have you ever wanted to live somewhere different from where you do now? To see a new neighborhood, eat different food, do new activities? Have you ever considered moving into...space? Though it sounds like something from a science fiction movie, this might someday become a reality. As we learn more about space, scientists are exploring future possibilities of sending humans into space to live permanently — new homes orbiting Earth or even on a completely different planet.

Why leave Earth? We have everything we need here already, right? With our changing climate and increasing population, some people think that we need to look into space for more, well, space and resources. For others, the desire propelling humans into space is simply one to push our limits and explore the unexplored of the cosmos.

Where should we make our new home? How about just orbiting in space around Earth? Technically, there are actually already people living in space. Astronauts from countries all over the world live on the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits Earth. It’s used by astronauts as a research facility for all things space related, like astronomy and physics. The astronauts only live there temporarily, though. The advantage of orbiting in space is that we could stay close to Earth. This would allow people in space to still visit Earth easily. Can you imagine going for a weekend trip to see a friend in space? The disadvantage is everything (food, water, supplies) that would need to be shipped to our orbiting home, since we would just be floating in a vacuum. This would be very costly. For example, for only six people living in the International Space Station, it costs over $2 billion dollars just to send water to them, according to the BBC.

Another option would be to colonize another planet. Living on another planet would allow us to take advantage of that planet’s resources, rather than having to bring everything with us.

But before we can move to an entirely new planet, we have to think about what things we need to survive on Earth so we can make sure our new planet will provide them. What is absolutely necessary to survive? Candy? Video games? Television? While those things are important, let’s think about what is essential for humans to live. There are the obvious things, like water, food, shelter, and oxygen. But there are some less obvious ones too, like enough gravity to keep us on the ground, or our friends and family. Before we can colonize space, we have to make sure all humans' physical and emotional needs can be met.

The most logical choice of planet to live on would be Mars, the closest planet to Earth and one we are in the process of exploring. NASA has sent five rovers, or space vehicles, to Mars to gather rocks, soil, and pictures. What the rovers collect will give scientists a better idea of whether or not life has ever existed on Mars and if we could live there. Water, being essential for any sort of life form, is the primary concern. We could ship it out to wherever we settle, but this would cost a ton of money. We already know this just from shipping supplies to the International Space Station. Mars is a lot further away than the International Space Station. If we want a whole community to be living on Mars, we’re going to need to find water somewhere on the planet.

Scientists across the world have already been considering the possibility of terraforming Mars. To terraform means to transform the planet into something that is livable and replicates the conditions of Earth. As it is right now, Mars is very cold, with frozen chunks of ice at each pole. If terraforming Mars sounds like a big task, that’s because it is. Before this mammoth endeavor can be achieved, scientists believe that three basic requirements must be met, which are water on the surface, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and nitrates in the soil, according to a paper written by NASA scientists. From the samples collected from the rovers, it seems like these three conditions are all met on Mars. From these basic requirements, scientists think we could potentially get water we can drink, create an atmosphere that we can fill with oxygen, and grow food from the soil.

Though it’s amazing to think this could all be possible and we could be living on Mars, we are still a long way away from this actually being a reality, according to NASA reports. Like hundreds of years away. Besides the question of whether terraforming would even be achievable, there are still many other problems to be addressed, such as the long term effects of living in space on the human body. Mars also only has 37% of the gravity that Earth has. While this would mean we would be able to leap and jump much higher than we can on Earth, it wouldn’t be all fun and games. Our muscles would deteriorate and our bone density would decrease from this lighter gravity. There are also concerns about emotional well-being. The first colonies on Mars would probably be very small and isolated many, many, many miles from Earth. Would you be able to live without your friends or family? That would be really hard for anyone.

In addition to the physical problems, there are also moral and ethical questions around colonizing space. To make Mars livable for humans, we would have to drastically alter the environment, according to PBS. To terraform Mars into a liveable place for humans, we would heat the environment by pumping out lots of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, similar to how we are unintentionally warming Earth currently. Greenhouse gases trap heat and make the environment warmer, like how wrapping yourself in a blanket makes you warmer. Many scientists question whether this is something that we should even attempt. If there is already life on Mars, these changes would greatly affect, if not kill, their natural environment.

In opposition to the paper released by scientists proposing how to terraform Mars, another scientist wrote a paper detailing a different option to live in low-orbiting man-made biospheres with artificial gravity, as a small step towards living in space. A biosphere is an area where there are materials for life to exist, so think soil, the ocean, all the places on Earth where life exists. These biospheres are a more likely and achievable next step to living in space within the next century or maybe even less.

We still have a long way to go before we will have “space people” living somewhere other than Earth. But if you had the chance, would you take it?