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Asked by alvaro02_bcn to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 10 Mar 2016.
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Stuart Atkinson answered on 10 Mar 2016:
It’s possible but the planet would need a lot of adaptation.
If we think about Mars, the most Earth-like planet in the solar system, it has a similar length of day, and nice blue skies on a fine day. However, because of the thin atmosphere (Mars is much smaller so has less gravity) it is below freezing in the day and really cold at night. We would need to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to trap the sun’s heat. Unlike Earth, Mars has a cold core so does not generate its own heat. We would then have the problem of an atmosphere we could not breathe! We would need to build houses which were sealed from the atmosphere so we could breathe indoors, and would need to grow plants to create food (we couldn’t take enough food with us!)
The trip itself is about 6 months, and puts all sorts of stresses on the body. The body starts to lose muscle mass in space and so regular exercise is essential. Also, the psychological effect of leaving our home planet cannot be underestimated. If the planet was outside the solar system then it may take several human generations before we reached it. Imagine that – people being born and living out their entire lives in a spaceship!
Moving to another planet would be a difficult task. However, if humans still exist in the far future then it will be essential if we are to survive, as the sun will eventually engulf the Earth. Don’t panic – not for another 5,000,000,000 years!
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Anais Kahve answered on 10 Mar 2016:
No I don’t think so unless the other planet was just like Earth! Life as we currently know it on Earth needs very specific conditions: climate, gases in the atmosphere, water, sunlight etc. Humans, plants and animals would not be able to survive on a planet that wasn’t like Earth.
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Lauren Laing answered on 10 Mar 2016:
It could be possible! Have you seen Mars One? (http://www.mars-one.com/)
The Mars One’s mission will be funded by investments from the private sector. The plan is to design and establish the aerospace companies for every major system required for a permanent settlement mission to Mars. Work on the first unmanned mission, scheduled for launch in 2020, has already started!
The plan is that the first crew to land on Mars start their journey from Earth in 2026! I think it is really cool that this could happen in our life time! I think it would be really cool to go, but it would be sad to leave life on earth behind! The typical time to travel to Mars during it’s closest approach to the Earth every 1.6 years is about 260 days! That is a big commitment to spend that time on a spaceship, and you cant change your mind and pop back to earth very quickly. If my fiancé would come, I think I might consider going ? You only live once!! Would you go?
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Richard Friend answered on 15 Mar 2016:
I think it would be possible if we could make some kind of sealed greenhouse so that we wouldn’t have to wear spacesuits all the time. They were looking into this in Devon, with a project called Biosphere2, they filled it with plants and some people lived there for a bit. The idea was that the animals and plants would reach a balance, but after a while the carbon dioxide levels got really high and they had to evacuate the people. Maybe once we can figure out how to do it on earth, then we can take the technology to somewhere else.
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