Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?
Every few months somebody starts talking about colonizing Mars like we’re all going to be moving there any day now. I do think it will eventually happen. Humans have never been very good at staying in one place for long.
What I think people get wrong is what life there would actually look like. Most people imagine futuristic cities under giant domes. The reality will probably be much closer to living in a remote research station where every breath, every meal, and every drop of water depends on machines continuing to work.
For a very long time, Mars will be bleak and sterile. There won’t be forests, rivers, parks, or afternoon walks. There will be metal walls, recycled air, maintenance schedules, and a constant awareness that the planet outside is trying its best to kill you.
That doesn’t make it any less impressive. The first people who choose to live there permanently will be among the toughest people humanity has ever produced. They won’t be building a paradise. They’ll be building a foothold.
Maybe centuries from now Mars will have cities and generations of people who have never seen Earth. The first chapter, though, won’t look like science fiction.
It will look like hard work covered in red dust.
2 responses
The thought of it always reminds me of the movie Total Recall 😂
Exactly Eric!
People, especially those who worship Elon Musk, seem to think that SpaceX is capable of safely taking a gaggle of settlers to Mars and, with a few portable structures, setting up the first off world homestead.
The average person knows only what Hollywood Sci-fi movies and the hype Musk spouts out during his ketamine delusions tells them.
Anyone with a bit of knowledge fully understands and knows that it will be a millennium or more before, if ever, mankind should attempt such a grandiose venture.
I think Musk and Trump are behind most of this recent Mars hype in hopes that they can convince the States to fund additional SpaceX exploratory flights to Mars as a precursor to colonization.
Even though Musk knows well that even two trillion dollars still would not make colonization possible.
It’s a money grab.
I believe that we should set all this space race rhetoric aside and perhaps explore the rest of Terra Firma.