You really only need a magnetosphere on the side facing the sun. It's probably possible to make satellite do that job. Calculations show you need about 2 Teslas

You really only need a magnetosphere on the side facing the sun. It's probably possible to make satellite do that job. Calculations show you need about 2 Teslas or 20,000 Gauss. We can already produce such fields here on earth. I would say the thin atmosphere is a bigger problem. It means your stuck in a box or a suit to provide oxygen and pressure. While giving mars an atmosphere is possible in theory. A fair amount of the rock on mars are oxides. The energy required to extract enough to have any sizeable effect on the planet are insane. Like we are lucky enough we had plants do this over those course of millions of years to produce such an oxygen rich atmosphere. It might be easier to just build bigger boxes though. Really if we are serious about this we need to building infrastructure that allows boot strapping further and further. If there is going to be any meaningful migration or settlement. Living in small boxes like the ISS or in caves does not really help on that regard. Honestly, the first people to go and build this infrastructure are going to have some toughest jobs ahead of them.