By Dominic Arthur, Staff Reporter.
For years, scientist have wondered about the possibilities of life existing on other planets.
This fall proved to be monumental for scientific discovery as NASA announced that they’ve discovered flowing liquid water on Mars via their Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) satellite.
The red planet has always been an interesting topic of discussion – with the main topic being whether or not human life would be able to survive. With the latest textbook changing discovery of water on the planet – not to mention NASA’s recent confirmation that lakes existed on the planet about 2 billion to 3 billion years ago – our interest in sustaining human life on the planet will only become more prevalent.
Martin Goodson, Ph.D. and professor of physics and astronomy, says that the discovery of water is important. Mankind only knows about life on Earth and the exciting uncertainty of what’s above continues to motivate us.
“Speculation has been that there was a great deal of water on Mars. We don’t expect to go to Mars to see people like we are,” says Goodson. “We’d be happy to know that there’s organic substance.”
Goodson says that humanity is going to have to look at the landscape on Mars and its chemistry to determine whether or not the red planet is a place that’s inhabitable in the near future.
“We have to figure out how we’re going to eat. You have to have people that will come up with some ways in which we can figure out enough about the soil – can we grow something? We will get there. It’s going to be costly. It’s the curiosity. It’s the sense of adventure.”
The next step with Mars is how we’re going to have to deal with the human characteristic of greed. With a history of war and violence, Goodson believes that if we hold ourselves together for another 50 years, positive things will happen with our exploration into space.
“We’re going to fight over whatever’s there. When we got to the moon, they had to parcel out all kinds of petitions for certain countries to have access to the moon. It was like a law or constitution on how we’re going to handle [that] whole thing.”
In time, Goodson says minerals and certain assets will be discovered on Mars that we don’t have on Earth and they will help the economy. He also believes colonization could be a possibility in the far future.
Goodson adds that we’re going to have to figure out ways to live on Mars. Our bodies are not used to the lesser gravity on Mars, and we will have to figure out how to manage that. “You lose bone density,” says Goodson. “It’s a long trip. We have a lot of problems, but they’re problems you’re welcome to solve.”
Delta College students Steven Snook and Wade Humphrey had similar reactions to finding out about the discovery on Mars.
“I think with the discovery of water, it will allow us to start the next space race to be the first country to land on Mars [to] start trying to colonize it,” says Snook.
Humphrey says that NASA’s next step should be to find out more information about Mars before we can even think about building on it.
“I would imagine they would send probes and at least one more robot to run more tests; and then most likely start building pods and such to send over for the beginning phases of human testing,” says Humphrey.
Goodson thinks that once scientists find out more about Mars eventually a government will “have to have some kind of rules about how [they’re] going to do things.”
But he has hope. Goodson says that whatever happens next with the exploration of Mars, and space itself, will reap a positive reward for those still on our planet as he predicts that nations will unite to work together for a common futuristic goal.
“It’s going to be very uplifting spiritually to a lot of people who feel very strongly that there’s connections between us and other lifeforms. That’s why we keep looking for planets.”
At the end of the day, Goodson thinks that whatever might comes next will be encouraging as we look to the new beginning.
“You’d hate to think that we’re here by ourselves; and I think that’s bad for the human psychology.”
