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Hazards in Outer Space

Paige Baker

Sinclair Community College

AST 1111-500

Daniel Hale

December 8, 2019
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Hazards in Outer Space

Hazard is defined in the Marriam-Webster dictionary as "a source of danger". If you think

of it, we come in contact with a lot of hazards. They may not affect up but we are always

surrounded by them. We take safety precautions so we do not have to suffer the consequences if

we do end up being affected by some kind of hazard. Do you ever wonder about the hazards one

could face in outer space? More specifically, if we were to be the first colonists to try to live on

Mars. What problems would we encounter?

Mars is a planet that orbits in the solar system. We would have to travel quite a ways

away to get to Mars. It is about 34 million miles away from Earth which would take about 9

months or so to get there. Some problems we could face would be first, having to figure out how

we would travel to Mars. I would say we would use a rocket to get there. The problem with using

a rocket would be that there would be limited space. You would have to narrow down what you

would take to survive and grow. Along with food, shelter, oxygen tanks, and room for other

people, you would have to store enough fuel to get there and some if you needed to get back to

Earth. The ride to mars could be a wild one due to losing gravity and hopefully dodging all of the

asteroids.

If you manage to get to Mars, the hazards do not just stop once you land. Scientists say

that Mars is the best planet to colonize because it is similar in many ways but it also differs in a

lot of ways as well. A single day is around the same amount of time. A single Mars day is about

a little over 24 hours. The year would be significantly longer at about 687 Earth days. Mars used

to have a lot of water on its surface but now it has a very very limited supply. They say that there

is water in the ice caps located at the two poles. You would have to travel and figure out a way to

keep producing that water so when more people start to live there, you won’t have a limited
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supply. Everyone needs a home so where will everyone live once they arrive? I think that they

should build dome like structures that contains oxygen. They should try to come up with a way

to recycle oxygen so that we do not run out of it. People can create jobs and a economic structure

by having people build those dome like houses and finding more ways to produce water and

food.

I would expect that there will be a lot of accidents and bad plans. That is just what comes

when you take on tasks that has never even remotely been done. If no one is 100% certain or a

calculation is off, lives could be lost and materials can be compromised. Not everything will go

accordingly but we will never grow if we don’t make mistakes then learn from them.

Obviously, people are researching and I heard they are actually getting ready to visit mars

to try to colonize there. If they find solutions to all the problems and hazards I have mentioned

above, then I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to live there in the future. I have multiple

scientists say that if we keep harming out planet like we are, then we have limited time on Earth.

That is very scary to listen to. If we do not end up being able to make Mars livable, then what

will happen to the human race? This report has made me think a lot about the future and wanting

to learn more about colonizing Mars and taking care of the planet we live on now. I hope we will

be able to conquer whatever it takes for our great great great grandkids and so on to live a

beautiful life.
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Bibliography

Hazard. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2019, from https://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/hazard.

Redd, N. T. (2018, August 18). Water on Mars: Exploration & Evidence. Retrieved December 8,

2019, from https://www.space.com/17048-water-on-mars.html.

Smith, P. H. (n.d.). Mars/Earth Comparison Table. Retrieved December 8, 2019, from

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/mars111.php.