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There will never be a long-term colony on Mars. Mars is not a habitable planet. Compared to Earth, Mars has no atmosphere. (100k pascals vs 600 pascals.) Mars
by Amezarak 3y ago
There will never be a long-term colony on Mars. Mars is not a habitable planet.
Compared to Earth, Mars has no atmosphere. (100k pascals vs 600 pascals.)
Mars has no magnetic field.
Mars has 1/3rd the gravity of Earth. We know low gravity has deleterious health effects.
Anybody who lived on Mars would have to live inside a pressurized building at all times. Stepping outside would be lethal. If we're able to to build sustainable colonies in these conditions then we might as well focus on colonizing the Moon first. There would be nothing special about Mars, we might as well just live in space habitats. If there is a future of Martian colonization it involves extensive genetic engineering and massive terraforming projects we can only dream of now.
- hersko 3y agoGravity on mars is probably a lot more viable for long term living than on the moon.
- Amezarak 3y agoSure. But the real issue is both of them are absolutely lethal and uninhabitable environments. There is no plan or even real dream to change that. Stepping outside on Mars will kill you just as dead as it will on the Moon. If you're going to force colonizing one of them for some bizarre reason and at huge expense you may as well pick the closer one. It's much more feasible to just build a bunch of habitats using rotation to generate artificial gravity than to plonk yourself down in a gravity well that is totally hostile to human life, and even that stretches the bounds of possibility, let alone practicality or desirability. We all watched Star [Trek|Wars] growing up, I get it. Mars is not a viable colonization project. The best you could ever hope for would be, at tremendous expense, an Antarctic-style research station.