Adapting the planet to life
Aušrinė Tunkevičiūtė
Introduction
This summary reveals major problems
of living in other planets. It is believed that it is possible to find the new
home and adapt for the new living conditions. The literature provided many
facts of the realization of this idea.
Key terms
Space settlement – the place which is adapted in living outside the earth
Colonization
– human transportation mostly to other planet. It is a mistake to think that it
saves people because colonization means saving the humanity race. Volunteers
take risk, but get the opportunity to collaborate with scientists.
Biomass –
organic material whose function is getting energy by burning it. Biomass
example would be municipal waste, wood waste, food, animal, plant waste.
Ecosystem – is
a community of living organisms in conjunction with the non-living components
of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as
a system.
Summary
The earth potential to human being
is full 100% appropriate, however there is some chance to encounter a significant
event that will affect our quality of living in this green planet. Internal
causes could be the enormous pollution or natural disasters. The catastrophe
also might be caused by external sources like sun or meteorites. It can be
stated that not only human curiosity, but also the great risk are the reasons
why humanity take interest in various projects and ideas of living in other
planets.
Before creating the project it is
important to understand the most popular issues in the other world. According
to Joseph Fernando’s review (1), the first problem human face on the foreign
ground is lack of oxygen. Without any protection on your body, you will die
immediately, however this conundrum can be solved. Every year NASA organizes
the competition to create Mars colonization opportunities (2). The team of Massachusetts
Technology institute won a contest of designing Mars city as the redwood forest.
Their idea is based on the forest ecosystem, where trees have connection with
each other to stay alive. On the ground there is a special construction of
bubbles that could convert solar light to oxygen and biomass. Inside the
building one finds a lot of trees and 50 inhabitants. Travelling is possible
underground, which can prove useful as a hiding-place. The settlement like that
is possible only in a calm, solid ground planet. However, to stay alive, we
probably should go much further where there are more challenges. The atmosphere
seems also very significant, because the house will not survive enormous storms,
tsunami or frost. One of the greatest alternative ideas of settlement outside
the earth is revealed in the film ,,Interstellar’’. Space settlement is similar
to a gigantic (up to a few kilometres across) spacecraft. At the bottom and at
the top there are living houses, functional buildings and a flowing river. NASA
explains that no one falls down because of the concrete pressure to the spaceship edges (3). Settlements must be
air tight to hold a breathable atmosphere and may rotate to provide
pseudo-gravity. This living place would be very flexible and adoptable to people,
because the people from very beginning are creating this world.
In conclusion, the living outside
the earth depends on our imagination and efforts. Most projects in the extra-terrestrial
environment adapted to human appears logical.
References:
3. https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Basics/wwwwh.html
