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Albert Okoh
Professor Collins
ENGL 1302
3 March 2016
Mars: The Next Step
Ashley Dove-Jay is a Ph.D. researcher in green morphing aerospace technologies and
also a guest speaker for one of the most important and debated subjects in our society; about
whether or not humans should travel to the Red Planet Mars? Dove-Jay held one of these talks
during a TED talks seminar. During his seminar about Mars he made a point about the necessity
of traveling to such a distant planet. He brought forth a bountiful amount of great reasonings as
to why it is important that humans make an effort to colonize Earths sister planet, Mars. Some
of the topics that he goes over include the misconceptions on the microscopic life living on Mars,
the atmosphere, the difference in resources on the Earth, the Moon, and the planet Mars, and a
wide range of possibilities that Mars could provide. Should we go to Mars, the TED Talk
seminar by Ashley Dove-Jay about how extremely necessary it is for humans to travel to Mars,
incorporates instances of necessary, reciprocal, and remote causes to help advocate the need for
humans to colonize the planet Mars.
During one part in Dove-Jays seminar, he explains how Mars has one of the most
essential elements for plant life, carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is taking in through a plants
leaves to help them grow and produce more fruit. Plants use the carbon dioxide to help
themselves grow and produce the nutrients that they need. Dove-Jays use of explaining how
Mars is a great place to establish a colony is based on the necessary cause that plants need carbon
dioxide to flourish. M. R. Henders report Suitability of Martian Environmental Conditions for

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Crop Growth on Mars also seems to help back up Dove-Jay claim. Hender goes on to explain
about how increased carbon dioxide levels help promote plant growth. To be more precise plants
will grow larger and faster, and have bigger and more stems, leaves, and branches; not to
mention it will also grant the plants a more extensive root system, produce more flowers and
fruit, and even help prevent moisture loss through transpiration by causing a partial closing of the
stomata. This helps bring sufficient evidence that Mars increased carbon dioxide atmosphere is
especially suitable for plant life if some limited modifications are made.
Naturally Earth has a finite amount of resources. Dove-Jay alludes to the theory that
humans are the cause for many of the imbalances in the world today. He does this by
incorporating it in a reciprocal cause that states that humans remodeled the Earth to find the
necessary resources to survive, which leads them to fight over those resources, which causes
humans to use up more resources, but since Earth has a limited amount of resources humans try
to remodel the Earth even more to get even more resources from it and so on. It is an eternal loop
that the human race can not escape from. He also goes on to say that yes, there are places and
research going on to help develop and find alternate energy sources but that is just prolonging the
inevitable. In Anthony Barnoskys article Approaching a state shift in Earths biosphere, he
helps give sufficient evidence to help support Dove-Jays claim. As one reads this article
Barnosky explains about how the Earth goes through ecological shifts. These shifts are caused by
the systems to be forced across critical thresholds (Barnosky). Barnosky goes on to provide
information about how human use of natural resources are causing unnecessary and substantially
tragic changes to the biosphere. Not to mention, if humans do not try to find alternate sources of
energy for depleting resources like fossil fuels then there will likely be severe impacts on human
health and even the economy. Also because of the overpowering flow of energy that humans are

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putting out through their uses of resources, major modifications to the ecosystems have been
taking place. Some examples would be how new and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide
levels are causing a higher rate of global warming (Barnosky) and causing the oceans to
become more acidic. With all this information presented by Barnosky it is safe to assume that
Dove-Jays argument was correct. Dove-Jay used vital information in the form of a reciprocal
cause to help strengthen his seminar speech.
Throughout history humans have faced all kinds of diseases. From things like small pox
to the black plague. Many of these sickness or diseases are caused by all kinds of different micro
life. Thankfully, humans have the natural ability to adapt and strengthen their immune systems
against these tiny organisms. Dove-Jay reports that people do not want to go to Mars because of
many of these tiny organisms through a remote cause. Of course the reasoning behind their fear
is because of the possibility of back contamination. Later on Dove-Jay also explains that humans
have nothing to fear from the micro life on Mars. He informs everyone present that the micro life
that lives on Mars could not actually be harmful to humans since the microorganisms have grown
and developed independently from humans. Over time the diseases on Earth that actually have to
potential to harm or kill human life have grown and adapted along with us unlike the ones on
Mars. Dove-Jay exclaims that the micro life on Mars is far off, but still possible, from actually
affecting the human species in a dangerous and negative way. Robert Zubrin helps to solidify
Dove-Jays claim about the microorganisms on Mars. Zubrin explains that because of the intense
atmosphere and planetary conditions of the surface of the planet it makes it hard for
microorganisms to live there. Things like how the surface is too cold for liquid water, is
exposed to near vacuum, ultra violet, and cosmic radiation, and [even] contains an antiseptic
mixture of peroxides that have eliminated any trace of organic material (Zubrin sec. 4.3. Back

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Contamination) are the main causes for Zubrins beliefs. Because of all these conditions and
many others the surface of Mars is practically sterile. Zubrin also says basically the same thing
that Dove-Jay does about how microorganisms on Mars could not be pathogenic to humans
because Mars has absolutely no type of macro fauna or macro flora to adapt to. Furthermore
Earth currently receives about 500 kilograms of Martian meteoritica ejecta per year (Zubrin
sec. 4.3. Back Contamination) and because of all the circumstances the meteor has to go through
to get to Earth is insufficient to sterilize it. With the appropriate use of a remote cause and
exceptionally strong research and evidence from other reliable sources, this section on Dove-Jays
seminar was effective on the audience in convincing them that colonizing Mars is not as terrible
as it sounds.
The seminar that Dove-Jay gave on whether the human species should go to the planet
Mars was a successful one. Dove-Jay was able to counter act many of the beliefs about why
humans should not colonize Mars. He explained why the people who are against have no need to
worry because of the many different kinds of perks and therefore rips apart the many different
assumptions of how dangerous it is and that humans could not possible live there. Not only that,
but throughout his speech Dove-Jay is able to strengthen his argument with hordes of
outstanding and reliable facts and research. Many of the causal arguments that dove-Jay uses was
greatly effective. He followed the reasoning of all the causal arguments that he used and was
even able to back them up effectively with phenomenal evidence.

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Works Cited
Barnosky, Anthony D., et al. "Approaching A State Shift In Earth's Biosphere." Nature 486.7401
(2012): 52-58. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
Barnosky talks about the history of the Earth. Its not about human history but the about
the ever changing ecological shifts the Earth has had. He explains how the Earth has the
shifts naturally but human intervention has been speeding up the process all the while
slowly but surely destroying our planetary ecosystem.
Dove-Jay, Ashley. Should we go to Mars? Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube. 30 October
2015. Web. 3 March 2016.
Ashley Dove-Jay provides a wide range of insight on the subject. As one watches his
TED talks seminar he goes into great detail about the many perks about why it would be
great to colonize the said planet. During this he also acknowledges the many discomforts
that people have about the concept of colonizing Mars but then brings up reasoning and
facts about why it is not necessary to fear those things.
Hender, M. R. "Suitability Of Martian Environmental Conditions For Crop Growth On Mars."
Journal Of Agronomy & Crop Science 193.5 (2007): 366-372. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.
Hender splits all the different aspects of Mars environment into different sections to help
promote effectiveness, readability, and focus to the topic at hand. Not to mention he
describes and talks about the problems that the planet has but gives solutions to those
problems. As a whole Hender does a great job describing Mars atmosphere and the pros
and cons that it has.

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Zubrin, Robert, Ph.D. "Journal of Cosmology." Journal of Cosmology. Cosmology, Oct.-Nov.

2010. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.
Zubrin does a spectacular job explaining why it is necessary to make a trip to Mars.
Throughout the article he talks about how there is no reason for us not to head over there.
As one reads the article Zubrin also destroys some misconceptions about why humans
should not head to Mars as well.