Colonizing Mars: Possible and Necessary

Buzz Aldrin once said, “The Planet’s famous red color is from iron oxide coating everything, so it's not just a desert, it's a desert so old it's rusting”. The Planet Buzz Aldrin is talking about is mars, now seeing this you may be thinking that If mars is covered in Iron Oxide, it would be un-inhabitable, right? Well no. Mars may be a huge desert with active volcanoes with a CO2 rich atmosphere, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t suitable for life. Mars can change, if we were able to set up a greenhouse with plants that can grow in un-earthly conditions than we can create breathing air which would greatly increase our chances of survival! Another reason why we can colonize mars is that there is water on mars, people may argue that is dry ice(Frozen Carbon Dioxide), however a new find by the curiosity rover has proven that false. One more reason why humans should colonize mars is because the space race isn’t over just yet. Being the first country to arrive at a

The Astronauts on mars will be required to grow and eat plants to survive on mars. A study done on the international space station (ISS) has shown that plants can even grow without gravity, provided water and nutrients. “There'll be nothing to compensate for the reduced gravity on Mars. However, experiments on the International Space Station [ISS] have shown that gravity doesn't play as great a role in plant growth as we once believed.”(Kahn paragraph 9). This shows that plants can grow with zero gravity, however there are currently only certain types of plants known to grow in zero gravity, one of those is Arabidopsis, a mustard like plant. According to NASA, Detected molecules in martian soil contains nutrients needed for plant growth, but it depends on where you land. (Jordan 1). With this discovery we can be certain that it is not impossible to grow plants on mars. This leaves another item that is needed for plant growth, which is