Is It Time to Send Humans to Mars?

by Sylvia Engdahl

The planet Mars has fascinated space enthusiasts since the late nineteenth century, when observation of the supposed "canals" on its surface led the public to believe it might be inhabited. Long before anyone thought that humans might someday travel to Mars, fiction—beginning with H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds, which was first published in 1897—stories about it have been popular. The discovery that the red planet has no inhabitants and cannot support advanced forms of life did not discourage its use as a setting for science fiction. And since the beginning of the Space Age and even earlier, it has been the prime goal of space exploration and eventual colonization.

I began writing drafts of stories about Mars colonization in 1953 or 1954. In 1967, when I finally wrote my Young Adult novel Journey Between Worlds (first published by Atheneum in 1970, republished by Putnam in 2006 and issued as an ebook in 2015 by me) it never occurred to me to question the obvious idea that we would go to Mars as soon as possible after going to the moon, and that it would be the site of our first colonies other than lunar bases. Journey Between Worlds strongly advocates the colonization of Mars and compares it to the westward movement of American pioneers. It's directed mainly to teenage girls, although many adults enjoy it, and is told from the viewpoint of a young woman who doesn't like Mars at first but comes to recognize its vital importance to human progress.

I have never stopped believing all I said in Journey Between Worlds, which, is more timely than ever and which I'm happy to have read by a new audience. However, my view of the priority of colonizing Mars has undergone a succession of changes.

In 1980, while working on research for a master's thesis in anthropology focused on the evolutionary significance of space colonization—which for reasons having nothing to do with its subject, was never finished—I became convinced that orbiting colonies would precede the settlement of Mars. (See my essay "Space and Human Survival.") I was won over by Gerard O'Neill's vision of their practicality. His writings maintained that having once lifted people and equipment up out of Earth's gravity well into space, it would be pointless to send them back down into another one—to another planetary surface. And orbiting colonies could meet the needs of Earth itself, beaming back power and taking polluting industry out of the atmosphere, whereas distant Martian colonies could not. They would be less expensive to establish than Martian colonies, and could be built sooner, on a much larger scale.

So throughout the eighties and most of the nineties, I believed that a fairly large-scale presence in Earth orbit would be our next step. But this didn't happen. It could have, if we had had the will to do it. And if we had started on such a project in the eighties—which we had the technological capability to do, given sufficient funds—we would be much closer to human missions to Mars than we are right now. However, in 1998 I changed my mind again. I don't think we will build orbiting colonies without first exploring further. The public simply won't grasp their potential benefits, anymore than it has grasped the potential economic benefits of permanent bases on the moon. That type of pioneering is too far removed from the image established by our biological and cultural heritage and reflected in the mythic depths of our feelings about space. It will come; it must come eventually if we are to save Earth from the effects of overuse. But we're not yet ready for it.

By the turn of the century I felt sure that we were ready to reach for Mars. The enthusiasm for the 1997 Pathfinder mission and the later Mars rovers inspired people's imagination. A grass-roots movement toward exploration and eventual settlement of Mars was building. It was evident that when people think of expansion beyond Earth, Mars is the place they envision. So it seemed that we might bypass the logical stage of near-Earth development, postponing it until later, and focus first on going to Mars. I felt that this might be our best, and in fact only, hope for gaining the support of a large enough proportion of the public to make the utilization of extraterrestrial resources possible. And of course, I was all for it! I have always believed Mars colonies were the hope of the next few centuries and a crucial step toward our ultimate migration to the stars. And I thought that perhaps, if we got going without further delay, I might live to see their inception.

But in 2012 I once again changed my mind. Though I certainly favored going to Mars and believed that was what America should do without further delay, I could see that it wasn't likely. I had come to realize that the public won't support further manned exploration of space quite yet, for reasons summarized in my essay "Confronting the Universe in the Twenty-First Century," (which appears as the Afterword to of my book The Planet-Girded Suns: The Long History of Belief in Exoplanets as well as at this website). The taxpayers will not fund it in the foreseeable future, despite the inestimable benefit not only to humankind's long-term survival, but to the current economy.

So I am back to believing that the next major step will be the establishment of a large-scale presence in Earth orbit and on the moon. The taxpayers won't support that, either (unless driven to compete with China)—but they won't have to. The most significant achievement I have seen since the end of Apollo has been the successful delivery of supplies to the International Space Station by commercial companies. I have always favored private development of space industry, but until now it hasn't been feasible; funds couldn't have been raised for such a long-term investment. Once there is enough profit in it to attract investors, that will change. And when we reach the stage of several companies competing not only to provide transport to and from orbit, but to supply energy to Earth from solar power satellites, we will at last move ahead quickly again. Not toward establishment of orbiting colonies, at least not soon; but we will be on the road to utilizing extraterrestrial resources and protecting Earth's environment.

At first, I assumed that for the near term, privately-owned spaceships would not be able to reach Mars. I thought the cost would be too high to attract investors, as there would be no near-term profit in it. Throughout history, costly advances have been made only under threat of war or with the expectation of profit; voyages from Europe to the New World could not have been made if the kings who paid for the ships had not hoped they would bring back gold. Eventually, however, the utilization of solar power and extraterrestrial resources from the moon and asteroids will make entrepreneurs rich. Those are the people who will be in a position to get to Mars, and they will surely do it, whether supported by the public or not. Explorers and pioneers have never had the backing of the general public. Yet through their discoveries, majority views have gradually shifted, and I believe it will be so with the exploration of our solar system.

Elon Musk is planning to send a ship to Mars within the next few years..

As it turned out, I was wrong in thinking that a privately-owned ship cannot land on Mars soon. In April 2016 billionaire Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX—which has been sending unmanned supply ships to the International Space Station—announced that his company will send an unmanned ship to Mars in the near future and will send astronauts later on. And he not the only wealthy individual with plans for space projects. That they see the need for humankind to become a space-faring species and are willing to risk their fortunes to bring it about is the best news I've heard since the Apollo era. Thus I'm more optimistic than I have been in recent years, now that a start is being made.

To be sure, Musk's ship hasn't gotten to Mars yet, and it remains to be seen whether his current goal of sending cargo in 2022 and a crew in 2024 can be met. Even if it is, the immediate value will be more symbolic than practical. Travel to Mars is a great deal more complicated than it was once thought to be. For example, the effect of long-term weightlessness on the human body is more damaging than was first realized, and whereas astronauts on exploratory missions may be willing to accept this, it seems unlikely that colonists can be sent before a ship with artificial gravity can be developed. It is really too soon to be planning a colony, though a number of excellent proposals for its physical establishment have been offered. The most important thing at present is to set foot on the planet with the intention of returning to it, for symbols are powerful and belief in the ability of humans to reach other worlds is crucial if we are to move forward.

At the same time, it is essential that attempts foredoomed to failure be avoided. In 2012 a small private company in the Netherlands announced a project called Mars One that it claimed would establish a permanent settlement on Mars by sending a ship with no intention of returning. Over 2700 people applied to be candidates for the venture. Unfortunately, from the beginning it was extremely unlikely that this company could fulfill its promises, as it had neither the funds nor the technological capability to do so. Some experts called it a scam, and many felt that since the inevitable outcome would be bound to disillusion the public, the publicity was doing the cause of reaching Mars more harm than good. Worse, If it did get as far as sending a ship, death of even a few would-be colonists would create a negative reaction that would delay any better-prepared Mars expedition, perhaps by many years.

Unlike some observers, I have no objection in principle to letting people embark on a one-way trip to Mars, as long as they are given a realistic idea of the odds of getting there and of what life in a small base would be like (it wouldn't be like the colonies commonly envisioned). If it is their choice to do that kind of pioneering--just as most pioneers in the past have traveled to new lands without expecting to go back--I wholeheartedly support them. But Mars One was collecting funds and volunteers by misleading people into believing there was a good chance of success, which given its lack of sufficient expertise, was simply not true. In 2019 the company declared bankruptcy and was dissolved.

Life in a small base on Mars wouldn't be like the colonies commonly envisioned.

I now believe that taxed-funded space projects should focus on establishing an infrastructure in orbit and on the moon that will support extensive use of extraterrestrial resources for the benefit of Earth and that can serve as a base for future Martian colonies. There is much about living in space and establishing self-sustaining habitats that can best be learned near Earth rather than at a distance beyond the possibility of rescue. And there is a need to gain experience before large numbers of people are involved in so risky an undertaking as the settlement of a new world.

The initial exploration of Mars should be left to entrepreneurs. Apart from the historical precedent and the avoidance of need to convince the taxpayers, this will provide an important psychological benefit. it will ensure that people don't get the impression that we go just to see what's there, rather than to lay the foundations for a permanent human presence in space.

Finding out what's on Mars won't do what is essential for the preservation of Earth, such as drawing on solar power to meet our energy needs and moving heavy industry out of the biosphere. When we got to the moon a lot of us assumed that one thing would naturally lead to another—I myself did, when in 1971 I wrote the original version of The Far Side of Evil. I thought just having space travel capability would cause a civilization to begin the process of spreading beyond the limits of its home world. It didn't turn out that way. It's widely recognized hat the problem with the space program has been that it lacks a goal, but the only goals seriously proposed recently have been ones that don't address either the issue of our species' future, or the present concerns of the public at large. And if reaching Mars were to become a goal in itself, without commitment to a larger vision of why humankind needs to be in space, we could lose momentum again once we get there, just as we did after Apollo.

The older I get, the more this prospect frightens me, despite the fact that my generation won't be around to see the result if it occurs. I don't believe humankind can afford another hiatus, although as explained in "Confronting the Universe in the Twenty-First Century," I now see that the first one was inevitable. Important as it is to go to Mars, such a mission will be worse than useless from the survival standpoint if it proves more of a distraction than a spur to our civilization's large-scale settlement of space. Elon Musk had the right idea when he said in 2012, "I’m talking about sending ultimately tens of thousands, eventually millions of people to Mars and then going out there and exploring the stars."

Let's make very sure that the public knows from the start that a successful mission to Mars is just a beginning.