Well, strictly speaking, you can’t. Mars is a completely hostile environment to human life, combining extreme cold with an unbreathable atmosphere and intense radiation. And while it is understood that the planet once had an atmosphere and lots of water, that was billions of years ago!
How Can We Live on Mars? - Universe Today
www.universetoday.com/111462/how-can-we-live-on-mars/
First of all the TEMPERATURE there is WAY BELOW FREEZING (something like 150 BELOW using the FARENHEIT measurement).
So you'd also have to live UNDERGROUND to survive.
Because the place also has TORNADOS or HUGE DUST STORMS all of the time (like we have HURRICANES) that would destroy any kind of a camp above ground.
Plus there's no water to drink (other than something that might be frozen and located only in a small area).
But before you could get there you'd probably also DIE due to the way not having GRAVITY would result in a loss of bone and muscle mass to the point where you couldn't even WALK anymore, much less grow food.
So NO.
I most definitely would NOT want to live on MARS at the present time.
If someone could find a way to TERRAFORM it and make it inhabitable that would be different, but of course I'll also be LONG GONE before anything like that ever happens.
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PaladinNJ (21782)
4 years ago
The Martain atmosphere is only about 10% as dense as hours. Despite what they did in the movie, even hurricane level winds would not be destructive at all.
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joi2049 (5632)
4 years ago
Yes but there are other problems with DUST STORMS on MARS as well:
https://www.quora.com/How-dangerous-would-dust-storms-be-to-Mars-Colonists
Dust storms can last a year. That all but eliminates above ground habitats. The futuristic pictures of are just wrong.
Martian regolith contains a lot of perchlorates and peroxides. We aren’t sure yet, but it’s very likely that Martian dust storms will too. These chemicals won’t cause much trouble to bots and rovers and anything engineered for the outdoors on Mars, but because the Martian dust is so fine, it might be difficult to keep it from getting into our habitats, our indoor clothing, our food, our hydroponic and soil-planted food production, even things like flexible gaskets and inflatable seals might be degraded chemically by Martian dust.
So I still wouldn't want to LIVE there anymore than I'd want to LIVE on our MOON which is also covered with lots of CREEPY REGOLITH DUST (about 4 BILLION YEARS worth of the STUFF cause no one is there to do any DUSTING).
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PaladinNJ (21782)
4 years ago
My apologies. You're correct. I was thinking in terms of physical damage. also it would make plant life all but impossible due to blocked sunlight. But it would most likely be done indoors with artificial light like shown in The Martian.
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joi2049 (5632)
4 years ago
The same post in the same link also contains additional info about how food would be grown:
Martian colonies will be underground in lava tubes for a long time to come. Farming will be underground in artificial light with heavily amended soil. Plants need the sun and dust storms block the sun.
That also creates a problem for solar panels. They can't be covered with dust and work much less work efficiently in low light conditions. That means the only practical way to generate the massive power needs of a Martian colony will be nuclear reactors.
The MARTIAN SOIL is also contaminated and would need to be uncontaminated. PLUS the surface is also full of RADIATION that would probably kill both humans and any plants they'd try to GROW there.
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