It was the 15th of August yesterday. For the second time in a row, our schools stayed empty and silent on an Independence day.
Independent India was in her thirties when our generation attended school. In most schools, like my own, this used to be the biggest celebration of all. For an entire month we would prepare for the day - every class practicing their special song, fierce competition raging between groups making India-themed charts, or splashing tri-colour decorations all around...
Things haven't changed much in the intervening decades, it appears. A few years ago, the young one showed me a poem that they were learning for the Independence Day program. It was "Jhansi ki Rani" by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, the well-known poetess, born on this day in 1904 [Today's Google Doodle is in her honour.]. It is perhaps no casual coincidence that Chauhan happened to be the first woman Satyagrahi to court arrest for protests against the British rule, while Rani Laxmibai has been an iconic symbol of resistance in India's first fight of independence against the British 'colonial' rule.
Throughout history, explorations for resources has one of the major reasons behind colonialism. Given the trend of population growth, our exponentially increasing requirement for a vast array of resources and given the limited resource reserve of planet Earth - space is quite obviously the new frontier. Clearly, we are about to enter the era of 'space-colonisation'.
For long, asteroid mining (for precious minerals) and terraforming (of other planets) have been standard science fiction fare. Recent space-exploration developments seem to suggest that the colonisation of Mars could just be around the corner. Serious suggestions are being tabled for terraforming (creating an Earth-like or habitable environment) of Mars.
Even though Earth is similar to Venus in composition, size and surface gravity, Mars has certain advantages for a long-term human habitation. Consider the following similarities -
a) A Martian day is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds.
b) A Martian year is about twice as long as an Earth year.
c) Mars has an axial tilt of 25.19°, hence seasonal variations are similar.
d) Mars has water (ice) and other elements (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulphur etc.)
Despite these, it would not be an easy task to terraform Mars. The current Martian atmosphere is too thin, the pressure being just 0.6% of the average atmospheric pressure on Earth. And it is also rather cold. Terraforming Mars would therefore entail - building up the atmosphere, and raising the temperature. And even if an adequate atmosphere is created it would be difficult to retain that, because Mars does not have a global magnetic field (which deflects solar wind and stops it from stripping the Earth's atmosphere). We also have no idea about the long-term health effects in such a low surface gravity (about 40% of Earth's) environment.
A recent study by NASA suggests that it may not be possible to terraform Mars using current technology. However, space-agencies, both public (NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, ISRO, CNSA, UAE) and private (SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing), are now engaged in activities to test the feasibility of setting up small, self-sustaining, sealed enclosures on Mars for limited time human habitation. [Yep! Just like in the movie 'The Martian'. Last month, in a lecture organised by the HAPP Centre (Oxford), Jim Green of NASA explained how the movie was made with close collaboration with NASA scientists and how much of what was shown could be achieved in not too distant a future.]
However, space exploration is not only about science. According to the UN 'Outer Space Treaty' (1967) no country may make absolute claim over an extra-terrestrial space or its inhabitants. But, given the participation of commercial entities (like the Space-X) in these ventures, such legal documents would require a thorough rewrite. There would also be ethical issues, as discussed recently by Nicholas Dirks (Scientific American, 10 August 2021). Dirks raises very valid points regarding the ownership of the regions, mining rights and so on.
However, our explorations have not yet discovered any large life forms on Mars (or Moon, or the asteroids that have been investigated), though search for micro-organisms continue. Therefore, worrying about the impact of our explorations on 'resident life-forms' seems a bit of an overkill. Rani Laxmibai and Subhadra Chauhan fought against `imperialistic colonialism'. It is perhaps somewhat disingenuous to transpose the 'colonialism' lexicon (and its implications from the European experience on Earth) unqualified onto near-future space-explorations.
