It's been more than half a century since man took that one Giant Leap. In the twenty-first century, not only countries and space agencies but billionaires too want to explore space. In fact, Elon Musk wants humans to live on Mars. NASA and CNSA too are working on sending an astronaut to Mars, not the moon but the red planet which is 10x farther from Earth. This, despite former President Donald Trump signaling at another lunar mission.

So why has mankind been looking towards the red planet that'd take 6 months to reach whereas it'd take only 3 days to land on the moon? For a common man, this may seem bizarre since we'd predominantly factor in time and money. However, if we were to really inhabit outside of Earth, geography, science, and technology are the most important factors considered by scientists.

Day and Night ratio

Mars spins almost at the same rate as Earth. Its day is just over 24 hours long, so a day on Mars would be roughly equivalent to a day on Earth. On the other hand, a day on the moon lasts as long as 28 Earth days. Direct exposure to the sun for non-stop 28 days will require extreme adaptability for humans. Also, since the moon is exposed to the sun for such an extended time, the day gets hotter while the nights get extremely cold. The difference in temperature is up to 300 degrees Celsius. Such a large day-to-night temperature difference can make it really difficult to engineer the right living systems, such as habitats and cars for moving around and space suits for going outside.

Atmosphere

Mars has an atmosphere. It’s not as good as on Earth, but it exists. It's mostly comprised of carbon dioxide, which is great for plants, but really bad for us humans. The atmosphere allows wind to blow, which is how the day-to-night temperature differences aren't as drastic as on the Moon — but that also causes a lot of dust to move around. The atmosphere also means that we can pressurize domes and structures using air from outside.

The moon, on the other hand, has almost no atmosphere. NASA’s website explains “At sea level on Earth, we breathe in an atmosphere where each cubic centimeter contains 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules; by comparison, the lunar atmosphere has less than 1,000,000 molecules in the same volume.” Since the moon has so little atmosphere, wind can’t really move heat from the hot dayside to the cold night side hence the drastic temperature difference.

Mars’s atmosphere could also stop a bunch of harmful UV and energetic particles from the sun due to its distance from the Sun. This would prevent us, humans, from being fried if we went outside. The moon doesn’t really have anything to block us from getting sunburned. We'd have to live indoors most of the time on the moon, but on Mars, it might be possible to live and travel aboveground. Neither of them are as great as Earth from a radiation standpoint, but if one had to choose, Mars is better.

Water

Evidence suggests that water may exist in the subsurface all over Mars. This is not definitive, but it is a relatively strong possibility. Ready access to water would be important not only for our ability to stay hydrated and grow things, but because we would be able to use it to create oxygen to breathe. The moon has some surface water, as well as interior water, but we would probably have to live near the poles to access it.

Gravity

Gravity on Mars is more powerful than the gravity on the moon. An average human weighing around 80 kilograms on Earth would weigh just 13 kilograms on the Moon whereas on Mars they would weigh around 32 kilograms. This increased gravity on Mars helps keep the atmosphere on the planet, and would also be useful for making objects stay put on the ground and keeping our bones a bit more robust.

Science

Evidence suggests that the moon may have been a part of Earth that split off millions of years ago. Mars, on the other hand, is a totally separate planet that evolved on its own, had a lot of interesting geology including few inactive volcanos. Many researchers theorize that there could actually be life existing like small bacteria or other tiny organisms. That possibility is fascinating and is one of the main reasons that astrophysicists keep recommending space agencies to explore more of Mars.

Moon's proximity to Earth will indeed save fuel, money, and time for frequent travels required for construction and dumping supplies. Attempting this on Mars will require decades since one-way travel to Mars takes about 6 months. Also with current technology, if we'd want to have a conversation with someone on the moon from planet Earth, we would only have a few seconds of time delay. The delay to Mars would be between four and 24 minutes, depending on whether Mars is on “our side” of the sun or the opposite side.

Mankind's first space mission to the Moon gave a much-needed insight into our solar system and the possibility of life outside Earth. Because of the possibility for life and the very interesting geology that took place a long time ago, Mars provides a much better opportunity for scientific exploration. Researchers strongly believe that in the long term, Mars wins. The moon is too harsh to be anything but a stepping stone toward life in space. Instead, a large enough space station would be a better alternative in case of any doomsday event than landing and settling on Moon.

unherdnow@gmail.com