Destination Mars: Weiliao Series: Weiliao series

By Hui Wang and Wei Wei

"Weiliao" is a series program that tells the story of the world, it created by Wei Yi Culture and Media AB, and launched in 2020. The content touches on history, science, technology, astronomy, geography, music, and more.

 

The book "Destination Mars" tells the historical story of human exploration of Mars. The story from the era of observing the sky with the naked eye, the space age, has been told to the new space age. Let us see how generations of adventurers and explorer pioneers overcome challenging obstacles and lead humans out of the Earth and into the deep space to see if we humans can land on Mars, like we once landed on the Moon and eventually become multi-planetary species. Let us look forward to the beginning of this new era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wei Yi Culture and Media AB
• Release date: Jul 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9789189209008

Book preview

Introduction

The book Destination Mars tells the historical story of human exploration of Mars. The story from the era of observing the sky with the naked eye, the space age, has been told to the new space age. Let us see how generations of adventurers and explorer pioneers overcome challenging obstacles and lead humans out of the Earth and into the deep space to see if we humans can land on Mars, like we once landed on the Moon and eventually become Interstellar species. Let us look forward to the beginning of this new era.

1

Preface

Our galaxy, our home

Our galaxy, our home

About 4.6 billion years ago, in a small spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy near Orion, as the gravity of a giant molecular cloud collapsed, the dense core formed a primitive star, and the gas and dust swirling around the star formed a protoplanetary disk, as time goes on, the protoplanetary disk gradually split into a large number of substances, these substances after a long process of evolution, collapse and collision with each other, they formed planets, moons, meteorites and other small objects, it is a star system, it is also our solar system.

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Compared to other star systems, the formation of the solar system is nothing special, but it is unique, because it has given birth to highly intelligent life - We humans. Humans live on a blue planet in the habitable zone of the solar system, and this planet is our Earth.

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On the outer side of the Earth's orbit, there is a brother planet that has the same nature as the Earth and has been accompanying growing up the Earth. It is Mars. But the fate of Mars and Earth is entirely the opposite. Mars is a desolate, gravel, cold, and dry, which is a dead planet.

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However, at the beginning of the formation of the solar system, the two brothers planets had the same fate at the beginning of the birth, there was no water, no life. Later, together they experienced hundreds of millions of years of meteorite impacts and frequent volcanic activities. Meteorite and volcano brought them water and atmosphere, let these two planets are produced the primitive atmosphere and the ocean. The dawn of life once appeared on Mars and Earth at the same time.

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But what exactly did Mars go through? Whether the Earth will repeat the fate of Mars, which is also the fate of our human beings, because now the Earth is still the only home of ours.

2

Destination Mars

The Mars

The Mars

Exploration, adventure, curiosity, and pursue the unknown, which have been programmed into our DNA as early as the beginning of human birth. Continuously explore and discover the unknown world, unveiling the mysteries of the universe and nature, is the enormous driving force for human progress. In the long years, we have crossed oceans and deserts, we have set foot in the Antarctic and Arctic, we have conquered mountains and sky, we have reached almost every corner of the Earth. When the Earth no longer has borders, we head towards the stars.

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The success of the world's first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1, marked the expansion of the human activity from land, sea, and sky to cosmic space, and we have entered the era of space.

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For more than half a century, human beings have made many great achievements in space exploration. It allows us to know more about the universe, the solar system, and the Earth, more than ever before, such as the Apollo program, Skylab, International Space Station, Space Shuttle program, Hubble Space Telescope, Kepler Mission, and so on, as well as countless artificial Earth satellites and space probes. These space probes have explored the entire solar system, like Voyager 1, which has been flying out of the solar system between 2012 and 2013, it becomes the first human-made object to leave the solar system, and it is continuing to send information to the Earth. Of course, if, according to the strict definition of the solar system, the solar system should also include comets orbiting the sun, in this case, Voyager 1 needs to fly about 30,000 years before it was able to fly out of the solar system.

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In recent years, more and more countries and private capital have joined, which has brought more opportunities and possibilities for space exploration than before. In the new era of space, we are no longer satisfied with our current achievements, nor are we only satisfied with staying on a small Earth. A new generation of pioneers and explorers will lead us out of the earth, into deep space, and to explore. And discover a new world in the distance. Unlike the Apollo program, this time is not for visits, but living. The moment we successfully land, it will mark the beginning of humanity as an interstellar species.

3

Find a human-friendly planet

Finding a planet suitable for human habitation

Finding a planet suitable for human habitation

To find a habitable planet would require at least several conditions. First, it must be a terrestrial planet. Then, it must have a long-lived parent star that able to release energy consistently and steadily. Finally, water, atmosphere, gravity, magnetic fields, and so on are all indispensable.

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In the solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, which are near to the Sun, are all rocky planets, also known as terrestrial planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune on the outer side of the asteroid belt, are all gas giants without solid surfaces, also known as Jovian planets. This kind of gaseous planets not considered for our landing.

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Of these four terrestrial planets, Mercury is closest to the Sun. It is about the size of the moon. The surface is covered with large and small craters. Because Mercury's atmosphere is extremely thin, thin to almost negligible, unable to effectively keep heat, the temperature of Mercury's surface during the day and night can be very different. The temperature in the equatorial region can reach 430°C during the day. At night, the temperature can drop to minus 170°C. The temperature in the polar regions remains below minus 170°C all year round. Just looking at Mercury's atmosphere, it is not difficult to see that Mercury is not suitable for human survival.

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Next look at Venus, the Phosphorus at sunrise, the Hesperus at sunset. Venus is the second planet counting from the sun and is located inside the habitable zone of the solar system. No matter the size, mass, and composition, Venus is similar to Earth. Compared to Mars, Venus looks more like Earth's brother planet. Venus was once considered as heaven, and many ancient civilizations also gave her beautiful and touching myths. She is the goddess of love and beauty among Sumerian myths, Greek myths, and Roman myths. It wasn't until the 20th century that human probes revealed its true face. Venus is more like an angry goddess. This is a hellish planet. Sending humans to Venus is impossible.

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The first is still the atmospheric problem. Venus has a very thick atmosphere, which is the opposite of Mercury and the Moon. The atmospheric pressure on its surface is about 90 times that of the earth, which is equivalent to the pressure that people bear when they dive to a depth of more than 900 meters. Don't say that we humans, even our spacecraft and probe can't stand it. Usually, they are burned or crushed before they penetrate the atmosphere. To this day, among the probes that successfully landed on the surface of Venus, the longest one of the probes only lasted 127 minutes (Venera 13).

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There is also the problem of temperature. Venus is hotter than Mercury, which is closest to the sun. It is the hottest planet in the solar system. The average temperature of the Venus surface is about 462°C. Humans want to land on Venus, that even can't find a suitable landing site. Venus does not have an axial tilt, so there are no four seasons, which makes the temperature of the entire planet almost the same, whether it is day or night, Antarctic or Arctic.

Venus' slow rotation is also a big problem. It takes about 243 Earth days for Venus rotates once, which is longer than its a year (about 225 Earth days), and Antarctic and Arctic are upside down. Compared to other planets in the solar system, Venus' rotation is reversed. So in theory, we can see the wonder of the sun rises in the west on Venus. but in fact, we can't see the sun on Venus at all, because Venus' dense atmosphere will reflect off 90% of the sunlight, resulting in Venus' surface is very dark, it is hard to see something more than 3 km.

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In addition, Venus also has problems with magnetic fields, superotation, sulfuric acid rain, sulfuric acid fog, and so on. In short, this is an extreme world that we never want to go to.

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Next, let's look at Earth's brother planet - Mars, a red planet. Mars is the fourth planet counting from the sun. It is located