As seen from Earth, the big red dot in the night sky has certainly caught the attention of Humans since we started contemplating the universe.
Today colonizing Mars could lift the barriers Earth may present to the continued expansion of humanity.
While planets in our solar system are subject to extreme temperatures and the dangerous elements of space, Mars has some similarities to Earth.
It is also in what is called the ‘Habitable Zone’, an area where conditions might potentially support life.
While its air is too thin to breathe and its surface temperature too cold for unsheltered life.
Mars – unlike other planets in our solar system – has the benefit of a 24-hour day, four seasons, canyons, volcanoes, polar ice caps, river beds, dried lakes and even some liquid water.
Before we landed there was the question of whether Mars was once wet. Now we know that there were once oceans on Mars as salty as the Dead Sea, plus there were hot springs and fresh water streams.
Water on Mars was not only present, but it was there in different forms. Mars had perfect conditions for long enough for life to form and evolve. At least we can say Mars was habitable.
Based on our current exploration and understanding of our solar system, there is no planet better suited to interplanetary migration than Mars.
Environmental destruction, natural resource constraints, rapid population growth and potentially deadly asteroids could leave the Earth with a limited capacity to sustain our continued growth.
‘Opportunity’, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from January 25th, 2004 until June 10th, 2018, when it last contacted NASA and had traveled a distance of 45.16 kilometers.
Careful operation allowed ‘Opportunity’ to exceed operating plan by 14 years, 46 days, 55 times its designed lifespan.
With a planned 90-sol duration of activity (slightly more than 90 Earth days), ‘Opportunity’ was able to stay operational for 5.111 sols after landing.
Maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power.
Due to the planetary 2018 dust storm, ‘Opportunity’ ceased communications on June 10th and entered hibernation on June 12th.
Hoped it would reboot once the weather cleared, it did not, suggesting either a catastrophic failure or that a layer of dust had covered its solar panels.
NASA hoped to re-establish contact with the rover, citing a windy period that could potentially clean off its solar panels.
On February 13th, 2019, NASA officials declared that the ‘Opportunity’ mission was complete, after the spacecraft had failed to respond to over 1000 signals sent since August 2018.