BBC Knowledge June 2017

In 1976, Mars was back in the news once again, courtesy of the Nasa Viking 1

mission’s ‘discovery’ of what appeared to be an enormous human head (lef t),

nearly two miles long, on the surface of the planet. Although refined imaging

showed the ‘face’ to be nothing more than a cluster of rocks, with each new

advance, Mars became more approachable.

Recent films and books, such as the 2015 movie The Martian, based on

a 2011 book by Andy Weir, treat the challenge of Mars not as that of a god

of war but a hostile environment that can be overcome by human tenacity

and science. The film sees astronaut Mark Watney stranded on Mars

and forced to find a way to survive until a rescue mission can be sent.

But future expeditions to Mars might not be confined to fiction. Back in the

real world, the Mars One organisation aims to have landed humans on the

planet by 2032, with the purpose of creating “a second home for humanity.”

Elon Musk, founder and owner of SpaceX – which develops rockets

and sells launch services to fund efforts to reach and inhabit Mars – has

declared: “The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions:

either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to

one planet and, eventually, there’s going to be an extinction event.”

We may develop the technology to explore Mars’s environment; we may not.

Either way, there’s little doubt that we’ve long viewed the planet through

the prism of our own environment here on Earth.

Buzz Aldrin walks on

the moon in 1969.

Suddenly Mars didn’t

seem so unattainable

Could humanity’s salvation lie on Mars’s rocky exterior?

After man first set foot on the moon on 20 July 1969,
humans walking on Mars – rather than Martians
walking on Earth – seemed more of a distinct,
if distant, possibility.
The moon landing had a global psychological
impact. For the first time, humanity could claim
to have found, walked on and photographed a truly
new land.
The moon itself was rarely taken seriously
as a possible home. Instead, in the aftermath
of Neil Armstrong’s ‘giant leap’, it opened up
the tantalising possibility of humans colonising
Mars. If only the atmosphere were not too thin;
if only there were water.
Terraforming – the process of modifying another
planet’s environment to make it hospitable to
humans – was a word first used in a 1949 short
story, but it became a staple concept of science
fiction novels from the 1970s onwards. One of the
most famous examples is Kim Stanley Robinson’s
Mars trilogy (1993 – ’96). This centuries-long saga
drew on contemporary scientific and philosophical
developments to take readers from the touchdown
of the first hundred people on Mars to their
subterranean habitat, the drilling of deep holes
to release heat and water, and the ultimate
thickening of the atmosphere.

NEXT STOP MARS?

SAVING FACE

One “giant leap for mankind” put the red planet

firmly back on the cultural agenda^3

4

66 June 2017

| MARS MANIA

HISTORY