Colonizing both mars and moon are the crazy and fascinating ideas, which humanity is following vigilantly. As humans have already tamed the planet Earth so now, it’s the time to traverse in to approach the solar system to begin a new race which would cause considerable advancements to benefit the whole civilization. Despite a few colonial advantages possessed by Mars, Moon colonization seems more feasible, both economically and technologically.
In order to answer the question, certain significant scientific, economic, and political benefits need to be considered for initializing colonization on either of the body. The spinning rate of Mars is pretty reasonable as it has a 24 hours long day which is quite a much equivalent to that of earth. While a day on Moon takes about twenty-eight earth days, therefore, the adjustment would cause a bit of difficulty. Also, the night and day temperatures on Mars are not much dramatic whereas, the nights are cold and days are very hot on the moon. The gravity is more powerful on the mars than on moon, which helps to keep the planet’s atmosphere. Also, this increased gravity would aid to keep the objects stay put on the surface and to keep human bones s little stronger.
Mars’s atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide which is harmful to human. Also, it allows wind blows that aids at equalizing the night-to-day temperature variations, however, causes extreme dust to roam around. On the other hand, the moon has nearly no atmosphere, therefore, there is not wind to case heat movement from day to night. In order to stay hydrated, human requires a ready access to water, and a strong possibility exists regarding the availability of water in the subsurface on Mars, however, the claim is not definitive. But the moon has both interior and surface water however its access is near the poles. The moon is considered more practicable in terms of economically feasible locality for colonization whereas mars colonization might continue to happen far off in the future when the political and funding winds might shift.
With the existing technology, about six to ten months are required to get on the Mars whereas Moon is merely three days away from earth. The closeness of moon saves a massive amount of resources, especially the fuel. As rockets would probably be used to land all the stuff, therefore, a few months would it take to dump all the supplies on the moon. On the other hand, a lot of years need to be spent to transport the contents required, on Mars. Rescuing humanity from the moon would not take much time while people might be stranded on Mars for years. Communication is also easier between the moon and the earth as it would contain hardly a delay of few seconds. But the time delay is about 4 to 34 minutes when communicating with someone on Mars, provided the mars position according to the earth.
In a nutshell, despite that mars have an atmosphere, better climate, and stronger gravity, but moon possesses a larger potential for a practice operation of initial colonization. Its short travel time can providing an easy approach to basic materials for building and other necessities, access to the water, access to the fuel for fusion drives and easier communication make it an ideal location to colonize the humanity at an initial stage.
References
Dinkin, S. (2018). The Space Review: Colonize the Moon before Mars. Thespacereview.com. Retrieved 19 March 2018, from http://www.thespacereview.com/article/221/1
