SpaceX And Scientists Speed Up Human Race To Invade Mars

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As NASA pivots toward speeding astronauts to Mars, and SpaceX pilots the Starship super-capsules that will lead this new space odyssey, vanguard American scientists are testing the technologies that could transform the Red Planet into an astonishing New Eden.

A Harvard-based torchbearer in the quest to remake Mars in the Earth's image, Robin Wordsworth, says new-generation rockets that are slashing launch costs and tech breakthroughs across the sphere of geo-engineering are setting the stage to create human-tended biospheres across Mars.

"We're currently working on new habitat designs that specifically address the challenge of helping humans live on Mars in the future," says Wordsworth, a professor of planetary sciences at Harvard who has written a torrent of groundbreaking papers on Mars and on potentially habitable planets circling other stars.

Part of Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere, along with rich reservoirs of water, are now frozen and sequestered around its southern and northern poles.

The Harvard space-tech designer says he aims to push forward and refine a proposal first floated by Robert Zubrin in his masterwork book, "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must," on reshaping the entire Martian orb to host a new branch of human civilization.

Dr. Zubin's idea for massive solar sail mirrors positioned above the Martian poles - channeling reflected light from the sun to melt the polar caps - could be realized, Wordsworth says, if inventors can take the last steps toward reducing the mass of the orbital reflectors.