Say if mankind made it possible for Mars to be inhabitable by humans, animals, and plants, would you relocate?
109827
I think "plan" is an awfully strong word to use for something that is at present only a distant prospect;  it would be akin to someone in Galileo's time saying humanity "plans" to go the moon someday.\n\nTo answer your question, I would relocate in a heartbeat, solely for the adventure of it.  However, I think such a thing is unlikely to ever come to pass, because it doesn't make economic sense.  Just exactly what resources are we expecting to get from Mars?  Not fossil fuels;  you need life to create the fossils to get that.  The principle resource that Mars offers is space.  But even having a whole other planet of breathing room doesn't offer much advantage.   Let's say that the Earth is overcrowded right now, and we want to terraform Mars to increase our space.  Consider that the most optimistic estimates of the time needed to terraform a planet are on the order of 1000 years. But the Earth's population doubles every 30 years.  Long before we could populate Mars we would have outgrown Earth many times over.  Even if God or some benevolent aliens were to terraform Mars immediately, we still would only have 30 years of living before we were right back in the same predicament.  Clearly terraforming planets doesn't help with overcrowding.  The same goes for other resources as well, since other things being equal the greater the population the greater the resources consumed.
1092064
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this, but it takes a *lot* longer than a few hundred years (a few generations) to result in a new species.\n\nOn top of this, the environment for colonists on Mars would not be that radically different from the earth's environment.  Life support would have to maintain the same atmosphere, temperature, radiation, environments, the same food and water requirements etc.  Probably the main difference would be the much smaller gravity on Mars, which would badly deteriorate human muscles and skeletons unless some other measures were put into place.
723698
IF... and that's a HUGE IF... there are structures or pyramids on Mars, the only explanation would be that some sort of civilization erected those structures.\n\nIn other words, ALIENS.
25974
Certainly, chances of another intelligent species out there are trmendous. Just a matter of time, before they find us, or we find them.
693601
It seems unnecessary since space settlement will be able to build more than a thousand times the Earth's surface area for us to live on while with Venus you might get the surface area of the Earth after a lot of effort and with Mars you'll get maybe a third or so (unless you do without oceans).\n\nTerraforming though is certainly possible, Mars would be easier than Venus but Venus would probably be a better planet once you finished it.\n\nTo terraform Mars you just increase the thickness of the atmosphere, put some plants there to give it oxygen and get some more heat to the planet (either you create a greenhouse effect or you put mirrors in orbit of the planet).  The biggest problem with Mars is the lower gravity.  It might not be a problem or might only be a problem if the Martians want to return to Earth or it might be almost as bad as zero g (and unlike in space it is very hard to make a large centrifuge on a planet).  The higher gravity will also make Mars incapable of holding an atmosphere with a lot of oxygen in it for any great length of time so over millions of years you'll have to replace the oxygen that leaks out.\n\nVenus has higher gravity (about 90% of Earth) so I don't expect gravity to be a problem there although heat is going to be a big problem.  Venus simply receives too much sunlight which is why it is so hot.  Even if you were to remove the atmosphere it would still be 100 °C which is far too hot for anyone to live so you have to reduce the insolation somehow.  Moving the planet would be the best way in my opinion although a giant filter between Venus and the sun (say at Sun-Venus L1) would also work.  Once you reduce the amount of sunlight striking the planet you can start to work on getting the atmosphere down to a more reasonable pressure by removing the CO_2 preferably by putting it into the rocks and then adding water.\n\nWith water you can then add plants and get photosynthesis going so that you can get the oxygen atmosphere needed.\n\nMercury might be another possibility but it combines the problems of Mars (low gravity and small size) with the problems of Venus (too much sunlight).
35001
That is so funny that you asked this. My kids and I were watching the news last night and there was the discussion of having the ability to land on Mars. They have discovered certain bacterias on Mars. The statement made was that the men and women selected to go to Mars would do so with the knowledge that they would never return to earth. We could not risk them bringing back a bacteria or substance that could grow and cause disease. My girls asked me the same question you did. Just last night! \n\n"Mommy, would you go knowing you'd never see us again?"\n\nWe all have our passions. Look at our different jobs and you can see what it is that drives us to work and provide not only for our family but for our self worth. I teach school cause for some strange reason I like to pass on knowledge. I'm sure there are people that want to pass on knowledge to the point of discovering it so that others can benefit from it. So much so that they would move to said distant planet as a pioneer. I hope I'm not being selfish when I say that I could not. My place is here. As I said, we all have our passions. Mine are directed towards so many responsibilities here that I could not desert them to do such a noble deed. Those that do........those that sacrifice all they have or could have are some of the greatest heros we'll ever know. So instead.......I'll teach about these people and make their findings worthwhile by passing on the knowledge of their discoveries. Maybe that could be my part. *shrugs*
319717
Yes, but not in the way you might think. I don't think we'll have any of the general population living there at all. (not in 100 yrs anyway). But, I'll bet that a small team of scientists will be living on mars at that time to study and experiment how living on another planet my be accomplished.
178231
G'day good question!!\nWell I'm all for space exploration, cos in the very long term it will be important for us to leave this place, scientists believe that places like Mars actually contain water in the soil in the form of Perma Frost, and if it could be released then perhaps we could live there one day. The giant moon of Jupiter ( Europa) is covered in a sheet of ice, what is under the ice is not known, perhaps a type of life form ( now that would create all sorts of questions don't u think?)
727887
that sounds type apocalyptic, but i think that later on in the future around the year 2120 or so that humans would be far enough in technology to move to another planet thats habitable for life. i think that they would move because the world would be to hostile for them becasue of global warming, soon animals would dominate but scientists predict that the sun would inplode in about 3 billion years, so that would be the end of that....what a mouth full.
719641
If you believe that, I guess some folks will have to live in the Sahara Desert, in the Antartic, and on Mt. Everest.  Enjoy!
364442
I'd like to a base on the moon, where we can launch our craft to explore Mars.\n\nBut I do not think it will happen in my lifetime.
262822
No, they'd be extremely too cold.  Unless Mars had a microwave...
634954
Depends on the amount of pollution, The cost of things, house rents, And the friendliness of the people(who knows whether they'll be blood sucking parasites of whether or the next brady bunch), The rate of oxygen masks and tanks... etc.And of course, depends on the space shuttle rates for travelling from mars to earth.
676296
It's completely beyond our current science and technology to replicate the environment of Mars with such precision that we could be confident that we'd have the exact same (or even similar) conditions for life as exist on Mars.\n\nIn addition, how would we replicate Mars' environment when we know so little about it?  You'd need to send thousands of probes to Mars to get enough information to even *begin* such an experiment ... and by the time you'd finish that, you could've already run a full set of experiments on Mars testing directly for the past or present existence of native life forms.\n\nA planet's biosphere is an incredibly complicated thing.  It's something that scientists seem to only now be learning about our own biosphere, unfortunately a bit too late.
216555
Yep, take a look at engineered environments such as the Eden Project. It's just a matter of time and science.\n\nMelsat: Terraforming is creating an enviornment on another planet, which can sustain human life at natural earth type plants and animals.
1107979
Definitely.  In only a few billion years our sun will expand and make our planet uninhabitable.  Long before that things will get very difficult for life on this planet.  Evolution of communities of organisms that can travel interstellarly is essentially impossible without intelligence.  The only real way for this experiment in complex life to persist in this universe will be through the actions taken by humans and posthuman intelligent life.  Without the evolution of intelligence, life is doomed to live out a fairly short span of time relative to the duration of the universe in its current life-friendly status.
1082351
Necessary for who?  It is certainly necessary for humans.  If it wasn't for humans, humanity in general wouldn't exist.  Maybe the rest of the planet might not miss us much, but I certainly would.\n\nWhile our presence and proliferation certainly does have a detrimental effect on many other organisms and ecosystems, it is because we create our own ecosystem.  Not many people really think about, but human cities and even rural developments have their own ecology and associated plant and animal life that thrives in contact with humans.\n\nSpecies such as rats, cockroaches and pigeons are the obvious faunal assemblage associated with human activity, but there are other species of animals that have become far more successful in association with humanity than they would otherwise have been.  Cats and dogs are far more numerous and widespread than their wild counterparts, as are chickens, sheep, cows and all of our domestic animals.\n\nThe crop species, like wheat, corn, rice and other have also benefited immensely from human cultivation.  The wild counterparts of broccoli and banana are not nearly as successful.\n\nThere are also species who have been able to expand their range as the human ecosystem pushes competitors farther afield.  Coyotes, raccoons, opossums, tree squirrels, house sparrows, starlings, and even white tailed deer have all benefited as the human ecosystem takes over what was formerly plains or forest ecosystem.  Other species like elms, palm trees, oaks and ash used to line our city streets have also expanded their range.\n\nWhile it's not exactly great for biodiversity, the human ecosystem does certainly benefit some organisms.  Without us Plasmodium (the protozoan that causes Malaria) wouldn't be nearly as successful as it is.\n\nSo the Earth itself would certainly survive quite nicely without us, but that entire ecosystem of cows, wheat, cockroaches and kitty cats would be wiped out without us.  In many ways, we are a keystone species in our ecosystem.  It's just too bad that we seem to be insistent on replacing EVERY other ecosystem with our own.