By Zach Ruchman

Man has always looked towards the heavens and dreamed of traveling towards distant planets. In 1969, with the words, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. Now, it seems as if we are ready to go a step further. NASA’s ultimate goal? Mars.

But for author Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society, the reasons for going to Mars have been percolating since he published his first book, The Case for Mars. “I got 4,000 letters from people who read it,” Zubrin said. “They came from people all over the world and they said all kinds of nice things. But underneath it what they were all saying was ‘how do we make this happen?’” Zubrin called a founding Commission of Mars Society, which was attended by 700 people. Interest in this red planet has grown exponentially – and today, The Mars Society has 6,000 members in 50 countries around the world.

Today, The Mars Society runs a program called Mars on Earth, which involves two research stations to test technology that might be used on a mission to Mars. The first station, located in Utah, serves as a test bed for the second, the Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island. “The geology in the Arctic is very Mars-like,” Zubrin said. “It’s somewhat so in the desert. We also have temperatures in the Arctic that mimic those on Mars, but the real thing that we are trying to do is test out exploration field tactics.”

The returns have been huge. Said Zubrin, “We are learning all sorts of things. We are learning that you do want to go to Mars on artificial gravity, not zero gravity because of the physical nature of the activity. We’ve learned that we want to use physical chemical life-support, not biological life-support, for waste recycling. We’ve learned about different kinds of character mixes that work. We’ve learned that the key problem, the human factors on a Mars mission, will not be boredom, it will be overwork because there is so much to do.”

Most importantly, the researchers have studied the dangers inherent in any manned expedition to Mars. Perhaps the biggest risk for any astronaut exploring the surface of Mars would be a torn spacesuit. If a spacesuit were to be torn, an astronaut would depressurize and die before repairs could be made. Other hazards would include mechanical failures in breathing equipment, becoming disoriented and lost, and dozens of other unforeseen scenarios.

“There are lots of things that could happen. You are talking about a frontier environment here. It’s filled with unknowns,” cautioned Zubrin.

Even after all the precautions that are taken on Earth to avoid simulated fatalities, accidents could easily happen on Mars. Zubrin recalled one incident, “Once in the Arctic we got stuck in a mud trap. You wouldn’t have a mud trap on Mars. You would have a sand trap that people could get stuck in and cause a great problem.” However, he pointed out with a laugh, there is one danger in the Arctic that is not on Mars: polar bears.

The crews that reside in the research stations usually remain for two weeks, although many have stayed for extended periods of time. In the mission Zubrin envisions, a crew would spend six months traveling to Mars, a year and a half exploring, and then another six months on the return trip. He also believes that a mission would be feasible in about ten years, half the time that NASA has publicly stated. Zubrin explained, “NASA official spokesmen have to go along with White House budgetary requests. If they were to say they could be on Mars in ten, they would have to ask for money now. By saying twenty, what they basically do is say, ‘We’ll get there sooner or later.’ It’s like you saying by the time you are forty you will learn the clarinet; you don’t have to do anything right now. If on the other hand you were to say you want to learn the clarinet by the time you are 18, then you would actually have to get a clarinet and start working. So that’s the difference. The actual time, most people agree, would be ten years.”

About 25% of the crews that go to the research stations in Utah and the Arctic are NASA scientists. While the two organizations do collaborate and share information, they have only an informal relationship and they do not share funding. In fact, much of the funding for the Mars Society comes directly from its membership.

With the prospective mission to Mars launching sometime in the next ten to twenty years, young people will become the future of the space program. “I think that these young people entering NASA undefeated, full of vigor and imagination, is what could get the space agency to move,” said Zubrin. “After all, today’s high school students are tomorrow’s astronauts.”

Zubrin advised, “Young people can get scientific education and become scientists and engineers and researchers, and young people can join the Mars Society and help fight division to get our society to adopt this as an objective.”

And of course, there is always the added incentive of discovering whether there is intelligent life out there. Zubrin commented, “I think it is highly likely that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The laws of the universe are the same as the laws of the earth…. If we can find that life originates wherever it has a promising environment, then we will know that life is common in the universe….If life is everywhere, it means that intelligent life is plentiful as well. It means we are not alone. It is worth finding out. We are going to find out by going to Mars.”