Why should we go to Mars?

Why should we go to Mars?

By Bruno Betancourt

For centuries Mars has been one of the biggest mysteries of the solar planet, and yet, it is the closest planet to the Earth. We have watched the red dot on the sky for thousands of years, we´ve written legends and myths of it, but we haven´t been able to explore it or get to know about the past of our neighbor.

Dr. Robert Zubrin, the president and founder of Nasa´s Mars Society says that there are three main reasons why the man should go and explore the red planet. “It´s where the science is, it´s where the challenge is, and it´s where the future is,” he says.

First of all, science. Mars once was a wet and warm planet, just as the Earth. And cosmically speaking, not long ago. The planet had water on its surface around two billion years, and this is twice the time that took life in earth to appear after water arrived. This means that if the theory is correct, and life is a natural development given the required scenario, Mar´s could have been a planet that hosted life, or could be right now.  So if we go to Mars, and in some way we discover any kind of fossil or something that proves that life was or is living on the plant, life could be a general phenomenon in the universe.  We could discover if life is as we know it here on Earth, or if we are only one expression of life. If not, we could be alone in the universe and be a natural incident or something like that (not quite what we would like, but good to know).

Secondly, the challenge. We all love challenges, and even more if they´re big. Youth societies are always hungry for challenges and they need them in order to grow in the future. This takes me to the third point, the future.

Mars is the only planet known (or at least the only one that we could get to), that has liquid water and all the resources needed to support life. Dr. Zubrin gave a speech where he stated, “I ask any person on America ´What happened in 1492? ´ and they´ll tell me; ´well, Columbus sailed in 1492´, and that´s correct, Columbus did sail in 1492. But that´s not the only thing that happened in 1492, because in 1492, England and France signed a peace treaty, in 1492 Lorenzo Di Medici, the richest man in the world died. A lot of things happened in 1492, and if there had been newspapers, this would be the main titles, not this Italian crazy guy sailing to nowhere! But we remember Columbus because he was the one that made our civilization and society possible.” We may not be the ones talked about right now, but its our job to make future generation´s life possible and safe.

We may be far from Mars, but I think that we´re closer and closer every day. Mars will be explored, no matter if its for science, or the challenge or the faith of humanity, or the technology or anything. The next big step of humanity will be on red, dusty soil.