Argumentative Essay On Mars

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The end of man’s time on Earth is inevitable; due to constant war, pollution of the environment, destruction of forests and wildlife, and depleting supply of natural resources, our remaining time on this planet is shorter than ever. Because of this, new alternative homes for humanity need to be sought out beyond the confines of Earth. However, our options on that are limited: the moon is barren, with no presence of water in any form, Mercury and Venus are too close to the Sun and pose too many problems, and anything beyond the asteroid belt is either too cold, has no solid ground, or both. This leaves one option: Mars. Its similar size to Earth, relatively close proximity, and evidence of water both underground and frozen at the poles make …show more content…

According to Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and author of “The Case for Mars,” “The first human bases on Mars could carry a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor” (as cited in Dorminey, 2016, para. 4). These reactors can provide enough power to sustain a small base, but Zubrin goes on to say that “to have a Mars settlement, you’re going to want 10 megawatts” (as cited in Dorminey, 2016, para. 4). That is equivalent to having 100 of the 10 kilowatt reactors on the settlement, which is far too much for NASA to send. Zubrin instead says that the key to this energy issue is simple: use the natural geothermal energy already present on Mars. Some might argue that other means of natural energy would be just as effective, such as solar and wind energy. However, while solar and wind energy work on Earth, Mars is a different beast. As explained by Bruce Dorminey (2016), the author who interviewed Zubrin on Mars’ geothermal energy and a well science journalist himself, Mars is too far from the Sun for solar energy to be particularly effective and the atmosphere is so thin that any wind would barely push a turbine to produce energy that way (para. 9-10). The next issue that arises with the use of geothermal energy is getting to it in the first

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