2017/2018 Mars Mission Update

So I’m going to take a short break from my Mars mission because there are a few other things I want to work on. But I am most definitely not done with Mars.

First off I have two more posts I want to write about dining on Mars. We’ve already talked about growing potatoes and other vegetables in Martian regolith, and we’ve also talked about entomophagy. But as a Mars colony continues to grow, the colonists may be able to sustain some more “luxurious” foods.

I also have two planetary protection papers set aside that I really want to read. One argues in favor of letting our Mars rovers enter regions where biological activity is suspected to be occurring. The other argues against it. I’m not sure what I’ll get out of these two papers, but comparing and contrasting the arguments should be interesting.

Lastly, I’ve been telling you that Mars had a rather violent history with water. The geological evidence suggests lots of flash flooding rather than the kind of stable, long-lasting bodies of water we see here on Earth. But I may have made a bit of a sampling error here because most of what I’ve been reading about focuses on the Tharsis Bulge and surrounding regions. I’ve heard that if I visit other parts of Mars—the Utopia Planitia region, for example—Mars’s history with water might start looking different. I don’t know. We’ll see.

I started this special Mars Mission because I felt like I didn’t know nearly enough about the Red Planet. At this point, I’d say I’ve learned a lot but still have a lot more to learn. So while I’m going to move on to some other research topics right now, I will be coming back to this fairly soon. And if anyone has suggestions for other Mars-y things I should check out, please let me know in the comments.