Living among giants. Exploring and settling the outer solar system / Жизнь среди гигантов. Исследование и освоение внешних областей солнечной системы

The outer Solar System may seem an unlikely destination for future human travels, let alone settlements. The cold and distant worlds of gas, rock, and ice seem to repel rather than to beckon. Humans have been to the Moon, and we have our sights fi rmly upon Mars and the asteroids, but could there be a role to play by the outer Solar System in the drama of humanity’s future? 
 If humankind is to explore and eventually settle the outermost reaches of our Solar System, we cannot do it by bringing everything with us. The distances are far too great. We must, in a sense, live off the land. There is another destination, much closer, that offers us resources to do just that – the Red Planet, Mars.  A lot has been made of Mars. Although the Red Planet is not as close to Earth as Venus is, its atmosphere is clear enough to view the surface through telescopes. Mars intrigued at the outset, with its Earthlike seasonal tilt and day, its polar caps, and its mysterious, undulating dark regions. Flagstaff astronomer Percival Lowell brought the popularity of Martian canals to a frenzy, crafting detailed maps of Martian “canal” networks and “oases” and writing popular speculative books about life on Mars. Writers such as Wells, Burroughs, and Bradbury took their cue from the work of early astronomers such as Lowell, 1 continuing the nineteenth- and twentiethcentury culture’s love affair with the Red Planet.  <...>