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I'd be more concerned about how flexible their habitat is. Mars doesn't exactly have a whole lot of water.

• stcredzero 14y ago
  Actually, in the context of the solar system, Mars is pretty water rich. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Polar_ice_caps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Polar_ice_caps By Earth standards, it's drier than the Gobi desert, but for the purposes of colonization, there's plenty there to work with. The polar ice caps alone could cover the whole planet in an average depth of 16 meters of water. Also, there's the asteroids for when the population grows to a considerable size.
  • bunderbunder 14y ago
    Absolutely. But in the more temperate regions there's not quite so much water, and shipping it in from the ice caps would be expensive. For the first colonists, I'm guessing they'd want to make do with as little water as they could get away with - meaning there wouldn't be any raising of fish unless they couldn't get away with not raising fish.
    • stcredzero 14y ago
      > in the more temperate regions there's not quite so much water, and shipping it in from the ice caps would be expensive. I'd see if I could use the atmosphere as a shipment mechanism. > For the first colonists, I'm guessing they'd want to make do with as little water as they could get away with - meaning there wouldn't be any raising of fish unless they couldn't get away with not raising fish. Farmed Tilapia ponds could serve as a reservoir of water/hydrogen. For a population in the 10's of thousands, it would seem to be a reasonable addition. For the first hundred, not so much.