Science(ish) E-Book

Rick Edwards

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A Sunday Times Book of the Year A New Scientist Gift Pick "Bright, nerdy and funny! Of course I loved it." Dara O Briain Can we resurrect dinosaurs, Jurassic Park-style? Are we living in The Matrix's digital simulation? Do aliens with acid blood exist somewhere in the universe? Will we ever go back and visit 1955? And just why were the original Planet of the Ape movies so terrible? In Science(ish), Rick Edwards and Dr Michael Brooks confront all the questions that your favourite movies provoke. Inspired by their award-winning podcast, this popular (hopefully) science (definitely) book dedicates each chapter to a different sci-fi classic, and wittily explores the fascinating issues that arise. Covering movies from 28 Days Later to Ex Machina, this is a joyous ride through astrophysics, neuroscience, psychology, botany, artificial intelligence, evolution, and plenty more subjects you've always wanted to grasp. Now's your chance: stylishly designed and illustrated throughout, Science(ish) is the perfect gift for every curious mind.

Leseprobe

Science(ish)

About the Authors

Rick Edwards is a writer and television presenter. His debut book,None of the Above, which explained the political landscape in the UK, reached number 5 in the overall Amazon UK chart. Rick has a Natural Sciences degree from Cambridge but only dimly recalls it.

Dr Michael Brooks is an author, journalist, and consultant for the New Scientist. His biggest accomplishment to date is not the PhD in Quantum Physics – it’s writing Rick’s favourite popular science book, 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense.

Science(ish)

The Peculiar ScienceBehind the Movies

Rick Edwards

Dr Michael Brooks

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2017 byAtlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Rick Edwards and Michael Brooks, 2017

Internal illustrations © www.sophierichardson.co.uk

Chapter header illustrations © www.patrickknowlesdesign.co.uk

The moral right of Rick Edwards and Michael Brooks to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 9781786492210

EBook ISBN: 9781786492227

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books

An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

  1   The Martian

  2   Jurassic Park

  3   Interstellar

  4   Planet of the Apes

  5   Back to the Future

  6   28 Days Later

  7   The Matrix

  8   Gattaca

  9   Ex Machina

10   Alien

Acknowledgements

Index

Introduction

You can pack a lot of hard-hitting truth into a work of fiction. Remember Aesop? The old Greek jackanory? A couple of thousand years ago his fables got some good reviews. Apollonius of Tyana, for example, said Aesop, ‘by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth’.

Aesop’s greatest hits included ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’, ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ and ‘The Lion and the Mouse’. They all teach us something, making us think about how we should act. And we don’t notice, because we’re enjoying a diverting story. In other words, Aesop knew how to simultaneously entertain us and make us smarter and better human beings.

The same thing happens when science hits the silver screen. Modern movie-makers are big fans of science. They don’t always follow its rules to the letter, but they do see its value to humanity. There is no end of screenplays that show science to be at the core of who we are, what we do, where we’re going and what the consequences might be – good and bad. They might be informed speculations, but they are often very well informed.

What’s more, they invite us to ask some profound questions. Do we need an agency that takes responsibility for diverting asteroids? Is it possible that we could have a global disease pandemic? Can we analyse people’s thought patterns, or their shared online data, to predict and prevent crime? Should mogwai be kept as pets?

You might recognize these as movie plots. But it’s important to realize that Hollywood doesn’t just make this stuff up.* These stories are all based around ideas that real scientists are working on.

The American screenwriter William Goldman famously said that, in Hollywood, nobody knows anything. But Goldman was wrong. Many of Hollywood’s directors, producers and writers pay close attention to science. These are clever, creative people, who see what is going on in the scientific sphere and bring it into the light. And so looking at the peculiar science behind the movies is actually a great way to start an important conversation.

In this book you’ll be faced with as-yet-unanswerable conundrums about genetic manipulation, the merits of colonizing other planets, creating animals that are part human, the hopes and fears surrounding artificial intelligence, the ethics of de-extinction… There’s plenty to think about.

Luckily, there’s also some knockabout stuff that probably won’t affect the future of humanity. Steel yourselves for the paradoxes of time travel, the mind-bending properties of black holes and the thorny issue of whether we are living in a Matrix-style simulation.

We have loved delving into all these questions in our podcast, and now in this book – and we’re hoping you’re going to have an equally good time exploring these modern fables. Aesop was OK, but we think Hollywood does it better.

* Well, apart from the mogwai.

1

The Martian

HOW WILL WE GET TO THE RED PLANET?

IS A MARTIAN HOLIDAY GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH?

CAN WE REALLY MAKE A LIFE ON MARS?

I love The Martian. It’s Man vs Wilderness, botanist Mark Watney vs his cosmic fate, Matt Damon vs Ridley Scott leaving him stranded and helpless. It’s crammed with science about how humans might live on the surface, what the dusty red soil is made of, what we might be able to grow…

Not sure you’d need an actual botanist for that. Growing plants is hardly rocket science, is it?

Oh really? You think a quantum physicist would be better?

Well, plants are quantum mechanical at heart, with the photosynthesis mechanism transferring energy through the leaf in a superposition state…

Your weird fetish for quantum is embarrassing. The only reason I’d be taking a quantum physicist to Mars is to help the crew sleep through the journey. And as a source of protein.

Home alone

Ridley Scott’s film is based on an excellent and crazily well-researched book (you’re right, exactly like this one) by Andrew Weir. While astronauts are pottering around on the Martian surface in 2035, a storm hits. Poor old Matt gets whacked by a broken antenna that pierces his spacesuit and damages the instruments that broadcast his biostats. His friends think he’s a goner, so they leave him for dead, blasting off from Mars towards Earth before the storm blows their spaceship over. But this is a Matt Damon movie. So – surprise! – Matt regains consciousness, finds himself alone and with very limited food, and quickly realizes that he’s going to have to ‘science the shit’ out of this situation…

It’s a big ask. When you’re watching the film, you get the sense that Mars has no mercy. Its dust storms are apocalyptic. Nothing will grow there. There’s precious little water and barely any atmosphere, it’s generally nippy by day and needle-sharp cold by night, getting down to minus 125 Celsius in places. Even its reputation is aggro: the colour of the planet Mars, fourth rock from the Sun, reminded the Romans of blood, so they named it after their god of war.

And yet we are ludicrously keen on Mars. The Red Planet has always been an object of fascination to humans, and in the space age never more so. After all, it’s not so far away that we can’t get there, and although it looks like an alien world now, it was once a bit like Earth. It had an atmosphere, it had water and there’s at least some soil you can plant your feet on. If we were to get to Jupiter, we’d find nothing but gas. Jupiter is not a great place to establish a colony. Mars isn’t, either, to be honest – it ain’t no Center Parcs – but it’s a good start.

So the first question that arises is obvious. The Martian depends on us being able to get people to Mars. How are we going to do that?

Fantastic voyage

I’ve just been looking at the Wikipedia entry for Mars One, the colony project. It’s hilarious. ‘The project’s schedule, technical and financial feasibility, and ethics, have been criticized by scientists, engineers and those in the aerospace industry.’

And now it’s getting mugged off in our book. Have many people applied?

Amazingly, yes – they had more than 4,000 people pay to apply for places on their Martian holiday camp.

And are they ever going to get their money’s worth?

[Redacted for legal reasons.]

First, you’ve got to score a seat. Elon Musk, the deep-pocketed founder of SpaceX, says you’ll need to pay around $200,000 for a ticket on his flights to Mars – when he’s finally ready to issue them. You’ll also need to have a ‘sense of adventure’ and be ‘prepared to die’. Well, at least he’s honest.

NASA is not currently accepting applications for their programme that will eventually put people on Mars, but it was quite recently. In case they didn’t get what they were looking for and reopen the opportunity, here’s some of what you need to know.

In the recruitment round that closed in February 2016, the annual salary range was $66,026.00 to $144,566.00. In any event, you’ll need a science degree, plus three or more years of professional experience or 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. An advanced degree is desirable and you have to be a US citizen. And, would you believe, ‘Frequent travel may be required.’

Mars One is the third option. This is also closed to applications just now. But, they say, check back often. Their astronauts must be ‘intelligent, creative, psychologically stable and physically healthy’. And without emotional ties. Or financial commitments on Earth, presumably: there’s no pay, as such. Also, the ultimate selection will be by public vote in a TV series, so you’d better have a lot of friends. Or, since it’s a one-way ticket, enemies might be more helpful.

The curse of Mars

In The Martian, Matt Damon is left for dead because his fellow crew-members are worried that a dust storm will blow their spacecraft over, stranding them all on the Red Planet. Many people have scoffed at this, because the Martian atmosphere is only 1 per cent as dense as Earth’s, and would therefore struggle to blow anything over. However, it has happened before – or at least that’s what we think.

The Russian Mars 3 lander touched down on the planet’s surface in 1971. It sent a signal home, but the signal was cut off after just twenty seconds. Experts think its mission ended abruptly when a massive dust storm caused the lander to topple over.

Whatever the cause, it’s only one of twenty-seven Martian mission failures so far. The problems can usually be pinned on human error, incompetence or inexperience. It started with NASA’s 1964 Mariner 3 mission, whose solar panels failed to deploy. Unable to charge its batteries, the craft quickly died. The following year, a solar-panel problem caused the Russian Zond 2 to drift off, lifeless, into space. There was the European Space Agency’s Beagle 2 mission, led by the heavily sideburned Colin Pillinger, which landed intact but never called home. There was also the time engineers on the Mars Climate Orbiter mixed up SI and imperial units. Oops.

We’re getting a lot better at Mars missions now, though. Most of the failures were last century, and we have run plenty of successful orbiter and lander programmes in the last decade or so. That said, the European Space Agency lost its Schiaparelli lander in October 2016. The curse still has some power, it seems.

Assuming you’ve got a place, you need to realize it’s a long way to the Red Planet. At its closest possible approach to Earth, when Mars is at its nearest to the Sun and Earth is at its furthest from the Sun, it would still be a bum-busting 33.9 million miles away. And that has never happened, at least not as far as we know. It would be a remarkable coincidence, and arguably not worth waiting around for, if the planets were both to hit those points in their orbit at the same time. As they dance around the Sun, the closest these two planets have ever come was in 2003, when they were 34.8 million miles apart. On average, the distance between them is 140 million miles. But there are optimal times to make the journey.

All in all, Mars is a pain to reach. In terms of launch velocity, the fastest spacecraft we have ever built was New Horizons. It initially went to look at Pluto, which is now in its rear-view mirror. New Horizons shot off into the solar system at a pant-soiling 36,000 miles per hour. And yet it would still take around two months to reach Mars. The actual time depends on when you launch your spacecraft at this moving target. As we learn in The Martian, there are certain windows of opportunity when a journey is more feasible than others. Working out when these windows will open is complicated but essential, because it takes time to prepare a Mars mission. And it’s important to realize that nothing carrying humans will travel as fast as New Horizons, because it would be carrying significantly more weight. New Horizons has little more than a set of fancy cameras. There are some fast and furious space-travel options coming over the horizon (metaphorically speaking), and we’ll get to them when we look into Alien. But if you are intent on going to Mars in the next decade or so, you’re just going to have to clear a few months in your diary.

The ideal dates for landing a future mission on Mars.

Slingshotting and other cool space-travel tricks

If you want to steer, speed up or slow down a spacecraft, but you don’t want to use up fuel unnecessarily, you need to ‘slingshot’. This technique, first used by a Russian craft in 1959, uses the gravitational field of a planet or moon and is essential to the plot of The Martian. It’s actually pretty complicated, but, essentially, if you want to speed up, you do a close fly-by in the direction of the body’s movement, gaining energy from its gravitational pull. Fly against the motion, and it’s like applying the brakes. You also have to get the angle of approach right for the gravitational field to fling you off in the right direction for your close encounter.

An interplanetary superhighway. © NASA

There are other ways to use the gravity of all the bodies in the solar system. In fact, NASA has laid out an ‘interplanetary superhighway’ that shows the various possibilities. This is a network of tubes whose walls follow a course set by the gravitational fields of all the various planets and moons.

Put a spacecraft within one of these invisible tubes, and give it a nudge: it will be pulled down the gravitational tube network as if those walls were real, physical guides. Fire a rocket motor at just the right time, and you can move into a different tube at their intersections. However, though it saves on fuel, it’s a very slow way to get around. If a budget space-flight firm ever offers you a ride on this route, just say no. However cheap the ticket, you’ll probably be dead on arrival at anywhere interesting.

Perhaps the most advanced transport plan is the ‘Interplanetary Transport System’ (ITS). This is the brainchild of Elon Musk’s SpaceX corporation, which aims to establish a colony on Mars in the 2020s. Here’s how the SpaceX ITS journey works. It starts with a 100-passenger spaceship mounted on a booster rocket that is equipped with a set of ‘full flow methane-liquid oxygen’ engines. This is powerful enough to lift the spaceship and its 100 passengers into orbit. But it can’t carry enough fuel to send them on their way. So, the spaceship-plus-booster combo separates before the ship has reached orbit. The spaceship is put into a ‘parking orbit’, while the booster returns to the launchpad, lands gently (everyone hopes) and is topped off by a fuel pod where the spaceship used to be. The fuelled-up booster rocket returns to orbit, where the fuel pod separates off and fills up the spaceship. The booster and the empty fuel pod return to Earth, and the spaceship is ready to go to Mars. In the SpaceX vision, there will be a fleet of ITS craft travelling together to the Red Planet, so all this has to be done multiple times. Basically, for a short while Earth’s orbit will become like a petrol-station forecourt, rammed with Mars-bound ships waiting for clearance to depart. Very cool, Elon.

Proposed departure sequence for the SpaceX expedition to Mars.

Months later, at Mars, each ITS descends using rocket-thrusters to perform a controlled landing on the Martian surface. That means the craft will be sitting up, ready for take-off whenever the humans want to go back. Unless it gets blown over in a storm, of course.

Your other option for reaching Mars is a little less enticing. Mars One, a Netherlands-based non-profit organization, is putting together plans for a Mars colony. There is a slight ‘budget airline’ feel to this operation, largely because you can’t buy a return ticket. Mars One describes its Mars Transit Vehicle (MTV) – which is still on the drawing board, by the way – as a ‘compact space station’ that will carry 800 kilograms of dry food (yum), 700 kilos of oxygen and 3,000 litres of water for the passengers’ seven-month journey to Mars. The space station has a separate lander vehicle, which disconnects from the main craft and lands on the red dust, never to fly again. That’s right: once you’re down, you’re down.

The Mars One pamphlet also contains a slightly chilling fact about its bijou little space station: ‘The 3,000 litres of water is also used for radiation shielding.’ And that raises a second question: Is going to Mars good for your health?

Staying alive

Everyone bangs on about space radiation, but I’m not convinced it’s so terrible. On Earth we get about 2.5 mSv every year from the Sun, and from natural radiation in the rocks beneath your feet. An X-ray at the dentist will give you about 0.05 mSv.

mSv?

Millisieverts. Radiation comes in sieverts, named after radiation-protection pioneer Rolf Maximilian Sievert. Millisieverts are named after his daughter, Milly.

Ah, science jokes – fun for none of the family.

Before we get onto the problem of the utter boredom of months spent making small talk with a man who won’t stop going on about quantum plants, let’s talk about one of the biggest problems with space travel: radiation. Space is full of speeding particles often known as cosmic rays. They don’t reach Earth’s surface because our atmosphere absorbs most of the ones that our magnetic field hasn’t already deflected away. However, once you travel beyond Earth’s shield, you will encounter plenty of them.

It doesn’t have to be disastrous, though. Space scientists have worked out how much radiation passengers are likely to encounter during a trip to Mars by looking at radiation monitors aboard the rocket that took the Curiosity rover to the Red Planet. The result? You’ll be within health-and-safety limits, according to Mars One.

Their calculations say you’ll get around 380 mSv during the trip. ‘This exposure is below the upper limits of accepted standards for an astronaut career,’ they say. ‘European Space Agency, Russian Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency limit is 1000 mSv; NASA limits are between 600–1200 mSv, depending on sex and age.’

Mars has very little atmosphere and no magnetic field, so colonists will still be exposed to cosmic rays on the surface of the Red Planet. They can expect about 11 mSv per year. That means settlers can work on Mars for about sixty years before they receive the maximum dose that space agencies think is acceptable for an astronaut’s career.

We aren’t entirely sure, however, that our radiation exposure limits have been set at the right level. Studies have begun to show, for instance, that the Apollo astronauts are suffering unexpectedly high levels of heart disease – possibly because of exposure to radiation that destroyed tissues in their veins and arteries.

Also, the amount of radiation goes up rapidly if the Sun happens to be in one of its active phases, when it sends out ‘coronal mass ejections’ into space. These huge gobbets of radiation are extremely dangerous, which is why the Mars One craft will have a dedicated radiation shelter – essentially, a huge, hollow water tank – for use when solar-activity forecasts are high.

For the most part, though, the craft’s radiation shielding will be enough to keep passengers safe, Mars One says, and you shouldn’t expect to spend more than about a week of your journey inside the hollow water tank. Elon Musk, incidentally, doesn’t think radiation’s a big problem. He’s such a space cowboy that he dismisses the health risks that have bothered NASA for decades as ‘relatively minor’. As a result, there isn’t really much of a shielding plan for the Interplanetary Transport System. Might be worth packing your own lead cagoule.

The physical peril is nothing compared to the mental challenges of life in space, however. First, there’s the boredom and isolation. Life on a space station is pretty repetitive, with the same brain-numbing maintenance tasks needing to be done day in, day out. The food is boring. Washing is difficult. It’s not a great life.

The selection procedures are designed to root out personalities that are likely to have a problem with this, but they’re not perfect, so contingency plans might be necessary. When NASA detects low mood during communications with any of its astronauts, for instance, staff will arrange for treats to be delivered, or for chats with family members. However, on a trip to Mars, this is not really an option. The distance from Earth means that communications are difficult, and it’s certainly not possible to send up goody-bags. The postage costs alone would be prohibitive. In theory it’s possible that treats could be pre-stashed in secret compartments on the habitation module, to be found by luck or through the transmission of clues, in a weird version of geocaching. However, when people are volunteering, how much responsibility for their well-being do the colonization companies have to take?

Psychologists have studied what might happen during the journey to Mars by confining groups of people together on Earth for extended periods. The results aren’t exactly heartening. Studies of people living in Mars simulations have shown that they tend to form into cliques that put the well-being of their own clique members above anybody else’s – even if it will jeopardize the whole mission. It’s worse if they divide up by gender: men tend to form pacts with each other that prioritize their individual comfort over that of the women. Men are basically dicks.

A typical day on the way to Mars *

06.00

Wake up. Rub down with soapy cloth

06.15

Breakfast – disgusting, as per usual

07.00

Read mission control’s briefing for the day

08.00

Housekeeping chores (cleaning, repairs, maybe some ironing)

10.00

Exercise (a losing battle against muscle wastage)

11.00

Snack (dry) and some science research (also dry)

13.00

Lunch (see breakfast)

14.00

Eject rubbish. Weep silently

17.00

Exercise again (giving new meaning to ‘star jumps’)

18.00

Dinner (see lunch)

19.00

Free time (you can’t talk to anyone on Earth any more, so entertain other astronauts with killer anecdotes about when you were a flying ace – again)

19.10

Inexplicably, everyone else has gone to bed early; open up that novel you always meant to read

19.20

Check Facebook and Twitter

19.35

Look out of the window and try to spot Earth – again

20.00

Unpack the rug you stashed in your things, and sing ‘A Whole New World’ from Aladdin – again

20.15

Go to bed; think about killing yourself

Even real astronauts, who are selected and trained to be as mission-focused as possible, can behave badly under the pressures of life in space. In 1973, some of the astronauts on the Skylab space station went on strike for a day because they felt they were being overworked. Then there was the case of the silent cosmonauts: in 1982, two of them went almost seven months on Salyut 7 without talking. Why? They didn’t like each other.

If you want to know the other health risks you’ll be taking on your trip to Mars, we’ve compiled a handy list:

Space flu

Your body did not evolve to cope with microgravity. Your heart is designed to pump against gravity, so on the way to Mars, blood and other fluids will accumulate more in your upper body. The result will be a puffy face, headaches, nasal congestion (in space, everyone will hear you sniff) and skinny little chicken legs. Your diaphragm will float upwards too, making it a little more difficult to breathe. Your back will ache because your vertebrae will float apart without gravity. (On the plus side, you could grow a couple of inches in height.)

Muscle loss

You’ll lose muscle mass because you just don’t need to work as hard in microgravity. That means fewer calories are being burned, though. It’s lucky the food is going to be so terrible, because if you don’t exercise whenever possible, you are going to go to seed. And nobody wants a fat, smelly Martian.

B.O.

Yes, you will smell. Washing is difficult in space. Not only because a shower is surprisingly gravity-dependent, but because water is a precious resource.

Nausea

That shift of fluids affects the inner ear, making you nauseous in the first few days. You’re very likely to be spacesick. Just under half of all astronauts are, and they’ve all been chosen because they’ve got the ‘right stuff’. So be prepared to vomit, suffer headaches and dizziness, and generally want to lie down. Except there is no down. Which, as it happens, will also add to your general confusion and disorientation.

Insomnia

Your sleep patterns are going to change radically. It’s often noisy on a spacecraft, and you’ll struggle to fall asleep. Your daily sleep/wake cycles are toast, because there is no pattern of darkness and light to give your body the necessary cues. Fatigue is going to hit you like a late-running train. As well as leaving you tired, disoriented and fuzzy-brained, the lack of sleep will also affect your immune system. You’re going to catch colds and other viral infections if fellow astronauts are carrying any, and you’ll succumb more easily to bacterial infection. Antivirals and antibiotics degrade after a few months, so you’ll be mixing your own medicines from dry ingredients. If you’re awake enough.

Bone loss

Eventually, you’ll suffer bone loss equivalent to a pensioner, because in microgravity astronauts excrete calcium and phosphorus. That means your bones will fracture more easily, and you might have to pass stones through your urinary tract.

Psychosis

Psychological effects of the journey include depression, anxiety, insomnia (ha! and you’re already so tired!) and, in extreme cases, psychosis.

Malformed cells

Oh and your cells, especially your blood cells, may not grow and function properly in the long term, because the lack of gravity will change their shape. We don’t yet know what the effects of this will be, but come on – it’s unlikely to be good.

If, despite all this, you’re still intent on a trip to the Red Planet, we need to address our third question: Can we really make a life on Mars?

Life on Mars

So, Brooksy, you and me on Mars. Who’s surviving longest?

Let me guess – you reckon that you would?

Well, I’m thinking my general knowledge is going to serve me better than your specialist stuff.

General knowledge? Reading an autocue, you mean?

You know you’re not going to have Google on Mars? It’s going to come out that you actually know nothing useful. You’re going to die on your arse the minute there’s a problem.

At least you’ll be there to do the spin-off show. #alwaysthebridesmaid

I WILL STEAL THE ROCKET AND LEAVE WITHOUT YOU.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, ROCKETMAN. I’VE SEEN YOUR DRIVING – YOU CAN BARELY GET HOME UNSCATHED FROM WEST LONDON.

I’m no psychologist, but I’m not sure that we’d be the best match for a joint mission to Mars…

The crux of the movie is that Mark Watney has to survive four years on Mars before any hope of rescue. If only he knew he was Matt Damon, and thus almost impossible to kill onscreen…

Watney sets out to grow the best food he can, while rationing what’s left in the crew habitation tent. His answer is potatoes grown in his own special, personalized brand of fertilizer. You know what we’re talking about.

If and when we colonize Mars, however, there are plans to do housing and agriculture properly. The basic Mars habitat (the pros call it a ‘hab’) is a pressurized tent. It has to be light enough to bring to Mars on a spacecraft, but strong and heavy enough to resist the diabolical Martian weather. It contains a life-support system that includes a breathable atmosphere and heating and cooling. It has to act as a radiation shield and have airlocks that allow the colonists to enter and exit safely. Ideally, it is modular, meaning that you can add and remove sections as they become available or unnecessary. Friends coming over for dinner? Bolt on the conservatory hab.

Possible layout of a Mars ‘hab’.

There are several habs under development at the moment. Much more challenging is the issue of food. The European Space Agency (ESA) has already had a go at planning the vegetable garden, and the menu. It contains rice, onions, tomatoes, soya, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, wheat and spirulina, which is a high-protein algae. You can put spirulina in pretty much anything, and you should: as well as abundant protein, it has a plethora of vitamins and all the essential amino acids (though the taste takes a lot of getting used to). ESA has even developed menu-cards (we’ve improved them, as you can see).