Experiments on children and wars on earth: what threaten to turn colonies on Mars and months

Ilon Musk and Jeff Bezos dream of earning billions of millions of people a month and Mars to live in the first space cities. But the reality is not as rainbow as it is raised by stakeholders. The American writer Zak Weinessmite and his wife, the scholar-parasitologist Kelly Weinger, decided to check how real the plans of humanity are or the individual billionaires to colonize other planets and satellites.

In their book "The City on Mars", the authors were going to write a manual for the golden century of space settlements, but something else turned out. "We conducted a bunch of research on space settlements by considering the issue on all sides. It was a four -year research project. And after about 2. 5 years we moved from a fairly optimistic forecast to a desirable, close, likely opportunity that is probably impossible in the near future But even unwanted in the near future.

So it was quite difficult, " - says one of its authors Zak Weinger. Weinger has found that extremely little studies of potential long -term consequences of life on the moon or Mars have been conducted - and no studies on how humanity will multiply outside the Earth. Moreover, the legal uncertainty about the property rights in space, apparently, can put all the plans for the slope.

"The main idea of ​​creating a settlement on Mars is the so -called" plan B "for humanity, which will allow to protect the future This question is that there is a good argument that is that we cannot even predict the result, "Zak notes. The idea of ​​creating settlements in space reaches decades: cities on the moon served as a novel by Robert Heinlein's "Moon - a strict hostess" in 1966, as well as for Artemis "Andy Vera 2018.

Martian cities are depicted in the Martian trilogy of Kim Stanley Robinson in the 1990s, as well as in his novel "2312", published in 2012. The High Front, written by physicist Jerard K. O'Nilla, gave a detailed description of life within the giant space -populated module in 1976. Settlements in space also played a leading roles in the TV show: from the notable series of the 1970s "Space: 1999" to "Expansion", "Mars" and so on.

Such an interest in the topic is not too far -fetched: Ilon Musk says that in 20 years, a self -sufficient city will appear on Mars, and he put his wealth so that it may be. Bezos, on the other hand, says it is waiting for a day when millions of people will live and work in space, even if it takes hundreds of years to get there. We already know that thousands of people are interested in this.

When a Dutch company called Mars One invited candidates to subscribe to a red planet without a ticket back, more than 200,000 people were interested and more than 700 were interested enough to pay an entrance fee. This project is Zagglh, but supporters of space in Space, including the founder of the Martian community, American publicist and engineer Robert Zubrin, support a dream.

In September, Zubrin announced that the Institute of Mars Technology will be created to develop tools and processes that settlers will need. "Only hope, not greed, will bring us to Mars," he said. The couple, which wrote "City on Mars", considers the issue of space settlement from an external point of view. Kelly Weinger is a behavioral ecology that focuses on the interaction between parasites and masters. ZAP Weinger is a caricaturist artist.

For four years, Weinger interviewed experts and studied research to find out how close we came to the creation of space homes on the moon, Mars or somewhere outside the Earth. As a result, they analyze the arguments that usually in favor of the construction of space cities, and indicate a few key issues that need to be resolved before humanity leaves its planetary cradle. One of the issues is a lack of studies on health and low gravity, as well as cosmic radiation.

This issue is especially important for children and their growth in space. "If you say that we will have a million people on Mars in 30 years, and you have not conducted these studies, then it is, in fact, something like the experiment on children, because there are a number of good reasons to believe that the effects will be negative. At best, you should expect an increase in the level of anomalies, ”Zak says. Fortunately for future children, some studies began to be conducted.

Last week, Japanese researchers reported that the embryos of mice were able to go through the initial stages of cellular development under the conditions of weightlessness on board the international space station. The experiment was recognized as "the first study that mammals can multiply in space.

" So a small step was taken to find out whether mammals will be able to be born outside the Earth? It is unclear how long it will take to ensure the safety of a giant step of humanity to numerous presence in space, but this is not the only obstacle that will have to be overcome by settlers in space. A large section of the book is devoted to the intricacies of international law that are or should be applied to space in space.

In the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union were among the signatories of the Treaty on outer space, the agreements of the Cold War, which excluded claims for sovereignty over the territory of the moon or other celestial bodies. Then the prospects for the development of the moon's resources seemed mostly theoretical, but when commercial space enterprises began to develop rapidly, the legislators again thought about the question.

In 2015, the Federal Government approved a law that states that US companies can produce resources from the moon, asteroids or other celestial bodies, bypassing the issues of sovereignty. Only a few other countries have gone to such a step, and Weinersmiths are afraid that seizure of land in space can quickly lead to war on Earth. "International law is very conflict," Zak says.

Will it ever be possible to create cities on Mars? There is definitely a plan for how to get there, but the journey will not be easy or cheap. "If you provided us with a NASA budget to solve the problems that need to be overcome to establish settlements in space, most of money would go to the construction of sealed ecosystems on Earth," Zak emphasizes.

He talks about the creation of many experimental closed living quarters, modeled on the Biosphere 2 institution, where the research team lived for two years in the 1990s. Similar institutions have been created elsewhere, including China and Spain, but Zak believes that such efforts should be taken to a new level.

"If I have been managing a preparing for space development, we would like to build many such systems, perhaps to make them smaller than the" biosphere "and modular, so you can see how small you can do them. Also, you need to find out, What plants, bacteria and animals are better to take with ourselves, and develop a real plan. We do not have it yet, " - emphasizes the author of the book.

With regard to legal issues, Weinger believes that the rights and responsibilities concerning space settlements, including the right to withdraw resources, should be discussed internationally. They point to the process that led to the creation of an international body from the seabed as a sample. If the Earth was heading for an inevitable catastrophe, could you complete preparation for the city in space in 20 years? Maybe.

But do you need such races by the first settlements on the moon or Mars? Almost certainly no, the authors believe. "We have to carry out a lot of stunning research. For example, send robots to lava pipes, where a settlement can be located in the future. But in terms of money earnings, everything is very relative. In fact, there is no real reason to desperately fight for cities on a month or Marsy.