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"The Future of Space in support of mankind"
Cameron McKenzie
Age: 16 years Grade 11
Northwood Boys High School
The sustainability of the Earth in terms of supporting mankind is limited due to most of the
resources used by mankind being of a non-renewable nature. As the planet Earth has a limited
number of years of sustainability, it is thus essential to look abroad into our solar system for
planets which may be able to be inhabited to support our ever growing species in the future.
The reason why only planets in our solar system can be studied or viewed as alternate planets to
support mankind is that, even at the speed of light (300,000 km/s) it would take 7hrs to reach
Pluto, which is not even at the edge of the solar system. However, we cannot travel nearly as fast
as light, as the highest speeds ever reached by a spacecraft are those of Voyager 1 and 2, which
are able to travel at 56,000 km/h. Another factor is unknown depth of our solar system. The
furthest hypothetically existing feature is the Oort Cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets,
which would take 10000 years to reach. Therefore the most probable planets for the support of
mankind are the inner planets of our solar system, Mercury, Venus and Mars. The moon may also
be able to support mankind if its gravity was to be artificially increased.
Of these inner planets, Mercury is unable to support mankind due to its transient atmosphere and
Venus due to its surface temperature exceeding all other planets surface temperatures, averaging
on 47 degree C. The only planet with the tiniest hope of sustaining our species and already having
living inhabitants is Mars, due to strong evidence existing that Mars once had water on its surface,
but now its carbon dioxide (C02) atmosphere is so thin that the planet is dry and cold, with polar
caps of solid carbon dioxide or dry ice. However storms on the Red Planet, produce oxidants that
would render its surface uninhabitable for life, as we know it, e.g. any nascent life (i.e. microorganisms) would find it hard to get a foothold on the surface of Mars, as the organic material
would be scavenged efficiently by the surface oxidants. Mars being created with the same
ingredients that on Earth led to the formation of molecules associated with life adds to the
probability of Mars supporting mankind, if we were to inhabit it. Scientist regard Mars as Earth's
closest relative, therefore of all the planets in the solar system, Mars resembles the Earth most
and outside of Earth, has the best chance of being habitable by mankind. However Mars's gravity
is 38% of Earth's, this lack of gravity would cause gravity induced osteoporosis and your bone
density would decrease to less than 50% of its regular density making your skeleton very
susceptible to breaks. Due to Mars having an inadequate atmospheric pressure our bodies would
exert a force, 200 times greater than the external atmospheric pressure on it, resulting in the body
would turning into a cloud of molecules.
Therefore I do not find space adequate enough in order to support mankind without technological
advancements, however with these advancements, both Mars and the moon could be inhabited to
a certain degree. These advancements would also however be too costly to research and
implement, with a trip to Mars averaging on R3150 billion, and thus I envisage in my lifetime or
even a hundred years after that, we will not see mankind on any other planet than the precious
one we currently inhabit and our efforts should rather be focused on maintaining our own planet
rather than trying to find another one.