Hi, I’m a Mars Nerd

On the first day of kindergarten, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up. “Astronaut,” I replied with confidence, thinking about my love for the stars and all the planets.

First grade. Astronaut. Second. Still astronaut. Third. Surprise, astronaut!

And this pattern continued onwards until I got to junior high. Yes, that wonderful coming of age when everyone who thought they had their whole life planned out as either an astronaut or a firefighter and ended up getting their bubbles bursted. Not surprisingly, I stood firmly in my belief that I was going to be an astronaut when I grew up. 

My dreams were crushed very soon after watching Interstellar for the first time. 

While it was definitely the most captivating space movie I had ever seen, the thought of getting lost in space only to come back to an Earth that progressed over 90 years while I was gone for only a few months scared me. 

Then I was just straight up confused what I wanted to do with my life… until I watched my favorite space movie of all time, The Martian.

This time, I got to see a happier ending. I was enraptured with the innovation Mark Watney exhibited after being stranded by his crew who presumed he had died in an unexpected dust storm. From creating a system in which he could farm food on the barren grounds of Mars to reviving and reprogramming rovers, I was wholly in awe at the fact that not only was life possible on Mars, but that there were people behind all of this—people that made technology like this possible.

And well… I guess I’ve been a Mars nerd since then! While I don’t exactly want to become an astronaut anymore, nor do I want to pursue a career in aerospace engineering, if you handed me a ticket to Mars, I would not hesitate for even a second!

And hey, you are all the first people outside my closest friends that I’ve ever told about my love for space, and Mars especially. Well, except for the time I mentioned the idea of a one-way ticket to colonize Mars to my parents, and they completely flipped out, but that’s a story for another time.

Okay, but guys I’m serious, Mars is so freaking cool!! For starters, the gravity on Mars makes it so that you can jump 3 times higher than you can on Earth according to National Geographic, so that’d be great for me to learn how to actually land a front flip and not fall on my butt oops. There’s also a canyon 5 times as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon, and while I’m sure the views would be stunning, I guess the red rocks you’d be surrounded by would be slightly less impressive when the ground you walk on is always covered in the red rocks and dust. 

While Mars will never fail to captivate me with the incredible possibilities of life and a new world, there are a lot of things that are important to consider before just booking a ticket to Mars.

For example, according to Britannica, “by all indications Mars is now a sterile frozen desert.” But there is still hope, because “radar reflections from a possible lake under the south polar cap suggest that water may still exist as a liquid in protected areas below the surface,” meaning that we could find a way to live off of these hidden water niches in the future. Additionally, the average weather on Mars is “in the same range as those experienced on Earth in Antarctica during winter,” which really stinks, but come on, it can’t be that hard to create anti-cold clothes in the future, right? Oh, also, the air on Mars isn’t quite breathable, and quite often filled with sand from sand storms, but we’ll just add it to the list of things to fix, how hard can it be?

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Lavina

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Sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/mars/

https://www.britannica.com/place/Mars-planet