Living on Mars would be a very hard life. Given that there's barely any atmosphere, you wouldn't be able to step outside without a spacesuit. And given that the

Living on Mars would be a very hard life. Given that there's barely any atmosphere, you wouldn't be able to step outside without a spacesuit. And given that there's no equivalent of the Van Allen belt, you wouldn't want to spend much time on the surface anyway to avoid excessive exposure to cosmic and solar radiation. While we can get to Mars with current technology (and possibly even back again), we don't have any known terraforming technology that would actually make Mars a viable place to live in the long term. Colonies on Mars would be reduced to living in sealed caves/bunkers. The quality of life would be pretty questionable. So why go to Mars to live in such conditions? Living on Earth, even after a catastrophic environmental disaster/collapse, is still likely to be easier and better than living as a colonist on Mars.