MarsDrive

I recently came across an article from a fellow Mars enthusiast and expert Charles S Cockell about his aspirations for his native country of Britain to be more involved in space exploration and settlement of Mars. This article can really be directed at many other nations such as my own country of Australia. We should be doing more and the potential of space will never be fully realized until more nations get involved. 

"Charles S Cockell is a professor of microbiology at the Open University. He argues that Britain should be more involved in space exploration.

Space exploration is changing rapidly. It's quite possible that the idea of space exploration costing a lot of government money will change in the next decade, and it will be easier for countries to pursue it. The expensive part is leaving Earth's gravity, so the key step is cheap access to Earth's orbit. When you look at people like Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic developing commercial spacecraft, those costs are going to come down.

As resources get used up on Earth, those nations that are wholly earthbound will become dependent on those nations that are in space and can exploit its resources: its iron, rare metals and energy supplies. And this has a strategic aspect. If you've got nations buzzing around in space looking down on Earth, you'll probably be dependent on those nations if you're not out there yourself.

Do we want to be a nation that's just restricted to being on the Earth, dependent on those nations in space? Or do we want to be the equivalent of a superpower, a nation that has access to space resources and has settlements in other parts of the solar system? I think the technical ability and the entrepreneurship are there; it's a question of whether we believe enough in ourselves to do it.

Of all the places in the solar system where you might try to establish a self-sustaining human outpost, Mars is probably your best bet. It's relatively clement compared with other planets and it's got an atmosphere that screens radiation and has water and permafrost in it. You can actually grow crops in its soil.

This is something we should be looking at now. It takes decades to get the scientists and engineers together who can do this sort of space exploration. Space will always be there, but there's something to be said for being involved early on and shaping the way that it develops."