We Can’t Live On Mars

By James Donahue 

If our adventures in space have taught us anything it is this; the human race is chained to the environment on Earth. Thoughts of escaping our ravaged planet to occupy a sanctuary elsewhere in the universe are not only impractical, they are probably impossible.

Look at the difficulty we have had just trying to build, maintain and occupy a space platform that is circling our own planet. The venture by American and Russian space programs has been costly and fraught with problems. 

President Bush’s plan to build a permanent (military) base on the Moon and eventually go on to settle Mars is a pipedream. While American astronauts have been to the Moon and back, everybody was well aware at the time they did it that the missions were dangerous. The success of each mission depended on our ability to carry enough oxygen, food, water and other links to the Mother Earth along on those Apollo voyages to sustain life for the few days it took to make the trip, walk the surface, and then escape back to the sanctity of home.

Every astronaut has experienced physical reaction to living with prolonged periods of weightlessness and the harsh environment associated with being away from the normal gravitational pull as well as the sunlight, water and air consumed on terra firma. No one knows what unexpected problems prolonged space travel will bring, if we ever try it.

Former Senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, offered some interesting thoughts on this subject in a recent story found in the Ohio Beacon Journal. According to writer Bob Dyer, Glenn believes the plan to go to Mars is too costly for us to consider.

The average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees, while on Mars it is 81 below zero, Fahrenheit. It took us three days to get to the moon. Estimates are six months to get to Mars. There is no oxygen on Mars. The atmosphere there is 95 percent carbon dioxide. If the rovers now wandering the barren surfaces of the planet can’t find more than a trace of it, we may not have water there either.

Just carrying humans in space for six months will require a very large ship so it can hoist fuel to propel the vessel, provide heat and electric power, food, air and water. Once there, we may have to make an immediate return or find a way to land, establish a colony, then create fuel, air and water to make the trip home again.

Mars is similar to Earth in only one respect. The days are just slightly longer than 24 hours. Other than that, anybody stepping foot on that planet will know it is not Earth.

The planet is about half the size of Earth, with a diameter of 4,217 miles, compared to Earths diameter of 7,926 miles. Consequently, with less mass, the gravity of Mars is less than half of what we experience on Earth. Yet because the planet is farther away from the sun, and takes longer to go through its changes of seasons, the years on that barren planet are 687 days long.

Science has determined that humans have evolved to live in our own gravitational pull and no other. When we go into space things happen to us. Even our reproduction capabilities diminish or fail.

Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which will give visitors a distinct eerie feeling of being on another world.

Stories of possible buildings and a giant mile-wide carved human face on Mars remain unproven. Remote viewer Aaron C. Donahue says he has been studying the planet and so far, he has not found any signs that intelligent life ever existed there.

So why would Americans want to go to the expense of traveling to Mars and trying to establish a colony there?

We suggest that the Bush proposal is either a political ploy, or else a long-range plan to sap the resources of Earth and all of the people of the United States to build a military advantage in space for the benefit of big business interests.

Because the Chinese have launched a successful space program and have announced plans to establish a base on the moon, Bush also is interested in a moon base. "We are in a space race and it does not directly involve civilian applications," Donahue once stated.

The Bush Mars venture will be extremely costly to taxpayers, will strip the environment, and further threaten the security of all human life with offensive and defensive technologies that will surely be controlled and monitored from space.

The tax dollars would be better spent on ecological preservation, human population control, education and alternative sources of food.

The bottom line: Since we can't rely on finding a suitable planet that will support human life, we believe we must everything possible to take care of the Mother Earth.