Mars; it is the fourth planet in the Solar
System, its namesake is the Roman god of war
due to its blood-red, iron-based soil. It
may not be as hostile as Venus, but there
are still plenty of dangers, notably the fact
that you can't just go there any time you
want, so why should we go?
[Intro]
Hello, Earthlings. Wether we have a craft
that can get to the Martian orbit or not,
no one can 'just go to Mars' any time we want,
unless we could reach extremely high speeds,
not warp speed, but more than we could with
chemical rockets. This is because Earth and
Mars are in two separate orbits. The Earth
orbits at a solar altitude of 150 million
km (93 million mi) at 30 km/s (18 mi/s), while
Mars orbits at solar altitudes of between
200 and 250 million km (120-150 million mi)
at a speed of 24 km/s (16 mi/s). So that means
you will have to wait for Earth and Mars to
come into alignment, which won't happen for
a while. You can see how the planets are currently
aligned on theplanetstoday.com.
And once you get there, there are a whole
bunch of threats, notably how at Martian sea
level, the air is as thin as it is on Earth
at 30,000 m (100,000 ft). All the dangers
aside, Mars is not the "boring planet" the
New York Times described as "boring" in 1965.
Sure, Mt. Everest is a huge mountain, but
Olympus Mons is twice as tall. This massive,
600 km (360 mi) diameter shield volcano is
so huge that it can nearly cover all of France,
or at least most of it. The summit is also
22 km (14 mi) high, on Earth, you would need
a space suit at that altitude! On Mars, well,
you'll need a space suit anywhere. Olympus
Mons is not Mars' only amazing geographical
feature, it also has a huge canyon.
Here's the Grand Canyon in Arizona, here on
Earth, it is 446 km (277 mi) long, up to 30
km (18 mi) wide and can attain depths of nearly
2 kilometers (over 1 mile). It attracts 5,000,000
tourists every year, mainly because people
can visit it, but Mars has a bigger canyon.
It's called Vallis Marineris, and where is
it? Right here. Really, it's visible from
wherever you can see Mars in detail, it is
huge, as seen by this obligatory comparison
with the lower 48 states, or for you European
viewers, here it is compared to Europe, and
now Australia, and here's China in case I
somehow get Chinese viewers, which, unfortunately,
might not happen any time soon. Vallis Marineris
is the Solar System's true grand canyon, only
surpassed in length by Baltis Vallis on Venus.
VM is 4,000 km (2,500 mi) long, 200 km (120
mi) wide and up to 7 km (4 mi) deep.
It's not just the geographical features, Mars
could easily provide humanity's 2nd home,
especially before we find a Class-M planet.
It will be difficult, but we might even be
able to terraform it. Sure it will take probably
around 500 years and cost trillions of dollars,
although with inflation that could be quadrillions
of dollars. It may not seem very habitable
to most of us, but it's certainly better than
Mercury and Venus. Mercury's day is 59 Earth
days long, and its day temperature is 430℃
(800℉), but its night time temperature is
-173℃ (-280℉) because it has no atmosphere,
and if it has no atmosphere, I'm pretty damn
sure it has no CO2. Venus has a runaway greenhouse
effect from volcanoes, so its average temperature
is 460℃ (860℉), to put that in comparison,
lead would melt at that temperature!
Mars' average surface temperature is -60℃
(-80℉), but those are just averages, if
I said Earth's average temperature is 14℃
(57℉), would you believe me? Chances are
you won't, even though that's actually true,
but in places like Death Valley and the Sahara,
the temperatures can get to 55℃ (131℉),
and Antarctica has reached temperatures as
low as -89℃ (-129℉). Mars can reach temperatures
of an unusually comfortable 20℃ (70℉)
in the equatorial summer, but the polar winters
can go down to -125℃ (-195℉), so we're
not going to the poles, no question about
it. The day-night cycle won't be anything
you'll have to "just get used to" either,
this is because Mars' day is just 1 hour longer
than Earth's 24-hour days, so you have another
whole hour each day! So if you want another
hour of sleep each night, just move to Mars.
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