Greek-American space exploration scientist Dr Stamatios Krimigis told a TV interview on Thursday that the colonization of Mars is practically impossible, at least for the next 200 years.
Speaking to journalist Nikos Chatzinikolaou on Greek private network Ant1 TV, Dr Krimigis opined that Elon Musk, a passionate advocate of the colonization of Mars, hasn’t realized the actual difficulties of such a venture.
“Manned missions for visit and exploration, that is something else, but colonization, certainly not,” the acclaimed space expert said.
SpaceX, the rocket company co-founded by Elon Musk in 2002, has made it an ultimate goal to send manned flights to Mars and eventually colonize the Red Planet.
The billionaire businessman stated recently that a manned mission to Mars could happen as early as 2029 when asked on Twitter.
Colonization of Mars not possible “in Elon Musk’s era”
This isn’t the first time that the Greek space exploration scientist doubts the feasibility of human colonization of Mars. In a previous interview with AMNA in spring 2022, he had called plans of a human settlement on Mars a distant dream.
Dr Krimigis, who has a PHD in the ways that particles are diffused during solar explosions, now went into more detail and explained to Greek talk show host Chatzinikolaou that humans on Mars would be completely unprotected in the event of a solar explosion due to the lack of magnetic fields and an atmosphere on the Red Planet.
If they were to colonize Mars, humans would need shelters dug at least one metre underground to protect themselves from such events, he added. And while that could perhaps be feasible in 200 years from today, it will not be so “in Elon Musk’s era.”
He does believe though that a manned mission to Mars could materialize in the next decade.
Krimigis’s participation in space exploration programs
Born on the island of Chios, Dr Krimigis is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, where he serves on the Board of Trustees, per NASA.
He has built instruments that have flown to seven of the nine planets, while he has published over 350 papers in journals and books.
In addition, Dr Krimigis has contributed to many of the United States’ unmanned space exploration programs of the Solar System and beyond, and in 1999, the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 8323 Krimigis (previously 1979 UH) in his honor, according to Wikipedia.