Moving to Mars

[Deckerd]

You think the board response time is slow now.....

it's the clouds across the moon

 

[Emher]

I'd never go on a one-way trip. Return trip, coolness, but one way? I got so much stuff I like here on earth.

 

[Jadzia]

So first, warm the place up intensively by pouring out as much CO2 and H2O as possible (melt some underground aquifers and the poles, to start with. Must be loads of trapped CO2 and water somewhere there. .

Mars doesn't have much of an atmosphere, and there are these areas around the poles where whatever vapors the atmosphere had appear to have condensed and frozen. There must be a reason why it has stabilized in this state.

The planet is cold, and will want to condense any vapors you put into the atmosphere. Also, a thicker atmosphere may be stripped by the solar wind. Mars has no magnetic shield after all.

Trying to push the planet away from it's current equilibrium is going to be an uphill struggle, and you'll need to be able to push that metaphorical boulder up the slope faster than it's sliding back down.

So a new equilibrium in association with a change of climate may not be that simple to achieve.

we'd have nothing to lose by going all out for speed.

If the material lost from the poles becomes unattainable, then we would have lost those poles.

These could have been a valuable mining resource if we had adopted a less reckless approach. Solid water and carbon dioxide would be valuable industrial commodities for increasing our biospheres as we expand them.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The first several generations of Martian colonists will have it extremely hard, but then that has frequently been the case with new settlements even here on Earth. There will likely be setbacks, disasters, and a high body count during the initial settlement of Mars, but with perserverence, new technologies and materials, (as well as some major luck), Mars could be a genuine second home for humanity in a thousand years, IMO...

 

[Shatnertage]

I know I'm late to the party in this thread but I couldn't help but adding....

I'm not the man they think I am at home. Oh no, no no.

 

[Captain_Nick]

I didn't realise Mars was so challenging. Couldn't we build our own magnetic shields? I want acres and acres of land to depasture cattle on, I don't want to be living in some 'biosphere' (I guess that's a bubble full of air and trees right?)

 

[RJDiogenes]

So a new equilibrium in association with a change of climate may not be that simple to achieve.

Well, there's always the "redirect a comet" approach. That's pretty simple.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Get your arrrrss to Mars! Get your arrrrss to Mars! Get your arrrrss to Mars! Get your arrrrss to Mars!

And give dese people AAIIAAHH!!!