{"id":82721,"date":"2018-09-16T06:02:22","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T13:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/scientists-say-we-cant-terraform-mars-elon-musk-says-we-can"},"modified":"2018-09-16T06:02:22","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T13:02:22","slug":"scientists-say-we-cant-terraform-mars-elon-musk-says-we-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/scientists-say-we-cant-terraform-mars-elon-musk-says-we-can","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Say We Can\u2019t Terraform Mars. Elon Musk Says We Can"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s CEO shrugs off 20 years of NASA research.<\/p>\n

\n

\nSORRY, ELON.<\/strong> To be ready for human occupants, Elon Musk has long called Mars a \u201cfixer-upper of a planet<\/a>.\u201d But according to a new NASA-sponsored study, a better description might be a \u201ctear-down.\u201d The scientists behind that project say it\u2019s simply not possible to terraform Mars \u2014 that is, change its environment so that humans can live there without life support systems \u2014 using today\u2019s technology.<\/p>\n

BUILDING AN ATMOSPHERE.<\/strong> Mars has a super thin atmosphere; a human unprotected on the surface of Mars would quickly die<\/a>, mostly because there\u2019s not enough atmospheric pressure to prevent all your organs from rupturing out of your body (if you survived a little longer, you could also suffocate from lack of oxygen, freeze from low temperatures, or get fried from too much ultraviolet radiation).<\/p>\n

This study<\/a>, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy,<\/em> considers how difficult it would be to increase the atmospheric pressure on the Red Planet enough so that humans can walk on Mars\u2019s surface without a pressurized suit and, ideally, without a breathing apparatus.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX\u2019s CEO shrugs off 20 years of NASA research. SORRY, ELON. To be ready for human occupants, Elon Musk has long called Mars a \u201cfixer-upper of a planet.\u201d But according to a new NASA-sponsored study, a better description might be a \u201ctear-down.\u201d The scientists behind that project say it\u2019s simply not possible to terraform Mars [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,2019,38,1507,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-elon-musk","category-engineering","category-environmental","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}