Humans have this instinct to explore and to colonise. From the earliest times man has been an explorer, initially to find food but then to search for better places to live and to find resources. Thousands of years ago men roamed the earth and traded with those he met on the way. As mankind grew he wanted more. Later expeditions into the unknown were primarily to seek for gold and other riches. When west met east and discovered spices there was a ready market waiting to be exploited. Even today men still explore and yet for all their efforts there are still undiscovered places on the planet, less so on land but most of the oceans on this world have yet to be explored to their depths. Not content with that mankind aspired to move away from this planet and to make that first step into the Universe, the last frontier as is says in ‘Star Trek‘. It isn’t just for the sake of exploration that mankind wishes to escape from this world, ultimately he seeks to colonise other worlds, fanciful as that may sound. Whether colonisation is a realistic aspiration is debatable. Our solar system is thwart with difficulties in regard to colonisation and there are but few places where it is even possible to land on other worlds, most of which are hostile to the human species. Once we leave the relative safety of our world we are open to severe radiation from the sun and that has to be considered when travelling through open space. The most obvious place for colonisation on a world that isn’t extreme in its environment is the planet Mars. Even so Mars is still a hostile place. Initial steps have been taken and are ongoing for a trip to Mars sometime in the not too distant future. Mars has a length of day which is very similar to that on Earth being around half an hour more than the average twenty-four we have here. The seasons, such as they are, being twice as long as they are here for Mars takes around two Earth years to encircle the sun. Temperature and atmosphere are a big problem as it the need to find water and Mars often suffers planet-wide dust storms too. Gravity on Mars is but 40% as strong as it is here which will have an impact on health. I am of the opinion that one day mankind will be living on Mars but under very different circumstances than what we find on Earth. As for other worlds within our solar system only the moons of the giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune offer any sort of solid ground on which to land but their environments are far harsher than anything we might find on Mars. The only other planet possibly suitable for some kind of colonisation is Mercury but the extremes of temperature make that very unlikely. Journeys beyond the solar system would require speeds of travel approaching the speed of light or some other means to cover the vast distances involved even to the nearest star systems. I fancy that day may never come but I can never be certain of that. Man being the creature he is will probably attempt it anyway!
Shirley Anne
