"Crash Icy Asteroids Into Mars": Scientist's Plan To Make Mars Liveable For Humans

There have been numerous theories on how human beings might terraform Mars and render the Red Planet habitable. Some scientists have proposed the use of plants such as Antarctic desert moss or even lichen that can tolerate conditions on Mars. 

But one Polish scientist claims that these are too hard to accomplish and instead suggests a more radical method to make Mars habitable.

Dr Leszek Czechowski, a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences, advises that Mars colonists in the future will not survive by planting crops in Martian soil, as depicted in the film The Martian. 

Mars' soil, regolith, is full of perchlorates, which are harmful to humans. Also, the low atmospheric pressure on the planet would boil the water within a human's body if they were not wearing a pressurised spacesuit.

In his paper "Energy Problems of Terraforming Mars", Dr Czechowski ventures that a more practical solution might be to crash asteroids into Mars. He suggests that frozen asteroids in the Kuiper Belt or the outer, hypothetical Oort Cloud might offer a means to build an atmosphere on Mars.

Mars' atmosphere is thin and made primarily of carbon dioxide, which does not support life. By hitting the planet with these frozen asteroids, it could be possible to release gases that would assist in creating a breathing atmosphere.

Dr Czechowski is convinced that the Oort Cloud, which lies deep beyond Neptune, holds billions of icy asteroids that can be employed for this aim. But getting an asteroid from the Oort Cloud to Mars would cost 15,000 years with the current technology.

Even though it is the long-term approach, Dr Czechowski's idea is pointing out one possible route towards making Mars a more human-friendly planet in the far future.