The race to conquer Mars

_{The private firm SpaceX plans to send its first mission with humans to this planet the next decade. However, they are not the only ones on Earth who dream of placing their flag on the red planet.}

On February 6, the world had its eyes set on Cape Canaveral (USA), where the most powerful reusable rocket in the world left for space. With 70 meters of height, 27 engines and the capacity to transport more than 66 tons, the Falcon Heavy of SpaceX company took flight with Elon Musk's red Tesla on board and a mannequin wearing a space suit, promising to change the future of the cosmic conquest while the song "Space Oddity" by David Bowie played in the background.

"This is one more step towards a mission to Mars. I think the way forward is for technology to reduce the cost of these launches, and that's exactly what SpaceX is doing, "says La Tercera Andy Weir, author of the best-selling book The Martian, a book that became the cinema in The Martian, where the actor Matt Damon personifies an astronaut who is left to his fate on Mars.

Despite being the closest planetary neighbor to Earth, man has not yet been able to put his feet on Martian soil; so far what is known about him is through unmanned missions and rovers that have taken up to seven months to travel, such as NASA's Opportunity, which this month completed 5 thousand days on the red planet, a record since It was designed for 90 days of operation.

Despite the difficulties, the desire to lead the conquest of the red planet is more present than ever, and the company of billionaire Elon Musk is one of the private companies that leads the race to put a human on Mars.

"The success of SpaceX has been very promising, but I would say that its greatest achievement has not been the construction of rockets that work, but the fact that they are cheaper. In fact they are ten times cheaper than those that other companies have created, but putting people on Mars is a much more difficult problem, "says the Chilean Mario Pérez, scientist of NASA's Cosmic Origins program.

According to the statement by Musk, the space transport company would be ready to send humans to Mars in 2024 in ships that would take between 100 and 200 people every 26 months to the planet, all with the aim of establishing in it "a self-sustaining community of approximately one million people. "

But Falcon Heavy is not the only alternative that SpaceX studies to travel. After its successful launch, Musk announced that they will concentrate on developing another even more powerful craft: the Big Falcon Rocket.

In race

For Robert Zubrin, president of the American organization Mars Society, the year 2022 is a somewhat hasty term to travel, but he believes that there is already the necessary technology to land on the planet during the next decade.

"The arrival of man on Mars would be the most important historical event since humans left Africa for the first time. This would transform us from a local to a global species. Going would turn humanity into a multiplanetary space civilization, "says Zubrin.

However, Elon Musk is not the only one who dreams of interplanetary conquest. The UAE is building a city in Dubai where they will simulate life on Mars, whose first part will be ready in 2020, and want to build the first colony in 2117. China and Russia, on the other hand, want to send probes for the next decade. Israel also has not been left behind and began last week to simulate, in the Negev desert, what it would be like to work on Mars.

Reut Sorek-Abramovich, a scientist at the Israel Mars Society, says that initially it is not necessary to establish a colony, but first a research base of 20 to 40 people. "We can bring minerals, perhaps exotic materials and invaluable knowledge, just as today's rovers do," he tells La Tercera about the reasons to travel.

At a private level, billionaires like Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the space company Blue Origins, and Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Galactic, have also proclaimed Mars as their next frontier to conquer.

The US, for its part, has been one of the powers that has shown less interest in sending crews to the planet, at least in the short term. As announced by President Donald Trump, the main resources of NASA during the next few years will be destined for the return of man to the Moon, an objective that the country announces could be realized between 2020 and 2023.

The budget will be used to build the Space Launch System (SLS), a new rocket that promises to be bigger than the Falcon Heavy. "The SLS and the Orion spacecraft are key elements of our future in deep space. This entrance to the Moon and beyond will give us a strategic presence in the lunar space that will boost our activity with commercial and international partners and will help us to further explore the Moon and its resources, translating that experience into subsequent human missions to Mars. " says Cheryl Warner, part of NASA's Mission for Exploration and Human Operations.