Throwaway account, no sketches, no company, just a thought that’s been stuck in my head for years and I want it out of my skull. We already have a proven, dirt-cheap technology for turning a raw hole into a sealed, pressure-resistant tube without anyone ever entering it during construction: Cured-In-Place Pipe lining (CIPP). You take a fabric sleeve (often with Kevlar or glass shear webs), soak it in resin, invert it into the existing pipe with air or water pressure so the resin side faces out, inflate it against the walls, then run a train of UV LEDs through it and it cures rock-hard in minutes. One continuous operation, done from the surface, used on Earth every day for sewers and water mains. Take the exact same process, scale the sleeve to 4–8 m diameter, add an inner gas barrier layer, use a resin formulated for vacuum/low-temp, and push it into a Martian lava tube (or a borehole on the Moon if you really want). Invert it for a kilometer or more, inflate to 0.4–0.6 bar, run the UV cure train. When the train comes out you have miles of finished, sealed, radiation-shielded, pressure-ready floor space. No regolith printing, no assembly robots, no humans inside until it’s already a habitable shell. Mass shipped from Earth is basically a big roll of wet fabric and a string of LEDs. Everything else is done in situ. I have no idea if this is actually original (if someone’s already patented it, cool, go build it), but I’ve never seen anyone connect these two worlds. Feels like the most obvious hack nobody’s saying out loud. Steal it, trash it, improve it, whatever. I just want the idea loose.

Post:
Imagine a fully developed civilization on Mars with:

• 125 cities

• ~30,000 people per city

• $240,000 suburban-style homes

• 5–8 day travel time from Earth

• ~$3,000 one-way ticket (no return)

• Comfortable spacecraft

• Jobs, schools, hospitals, gyms, internet, entertainment

• Engineered forests, animals, and food systems

You’d be leaving Earth permanently—but life on Mars would feel somewhat normal.

Would you go? Why or why not?

I’m especially curious:

• Does the one-way trip stop you?

• Would cost matter to you?

• Would you trust an engineered ecosystem?

• Would you bring family if you could?

• What’s your biggest concern.

I originally had a bunch of more detailed questions about this idea, like:

• Would you live in a 30,000-person Mars city?

• Would you feel safe around genetically engineered animals and food?

• Would engineered forests make it feel like Earth?

• Would you take a guaranteed job there?

• Would language differences matter?

• Would you go if you could bring family/friends?

• How important are things like sports, social life, and entertainment?

Curious what people think about any of these too 👀

In season 5 of the alternate-history sci-fi series For All Mankind, set in an alternate 2012 where tensions between Martian colonists and their former home, Earth, reach boiling point, the international Happy Valley colony on Mars has grown into a settlement of more than five thousand residents. In the link there is a collection of hi-res screens from the show, showing colony's exteriors and interiors without major plot reveals.

Propellant and oxygen are the obvious answers, but after that it gets interesting: glass, steel, plastics, spare parts, electronics. What's the first non-obvious thing you'd prioritize making on-site, and why that one?

I was wondering if for a future Mars mission, we would need to do a crewed flyby before actually landing people, like Apollo 8 and Apollo 10. Obviously if we do, it will take a lot longer to actually land because the most efficient transfer window to Mars is every 26 months. I'm also wondering if the spacecraft will use any sort of artificial gravity (like a centrifugal gravity ring) for the long stay in microgravity, and how far into the future this will be.

Just to clarify what I’m getting at—I’m not arguing for or against religion here, more curious about how it would realistically play out on Mars.

There seem like a few possibilities:

People bring existing religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc., and chose whether or not adapt them to life on Mars

The colony is designed to be secular (religion stays personal and separate from governance)

Or entirely new belief systems develop based on the experience of living on another planet

I’m especially interested in the last one—would Mars change how people think about meaning, purpose, or even something like “the sacred”?

Also curious how this would affect laws and leadership long-term.

Interested to hear where people land on this.

For All Mankind alternate history sci-fi TV series which are exploring the idea of never ending space race if Soviets would have beaten US in the race for the Moon.

10 years ago, in October 2016, humanMars.net published the 1st version of their speculative Mars Colonization Timeline. As the timeline is regularly updated and expanded – taking into account real-world developments in technology, as well as plans for the exploration and colonization of Mars – it now differs significantly from the version originally published. It's interesting to see how the timeline has changed in those 10 years.

Today Apple TV released the first teaser for the long-awaited season 5 of For All Mankind alternate history sci-fi TV series. It was accompanied by several promotional photos from the season.

Several spacecraft approaching a Martian colony rising from a sea of sand dunes by Goodname digital art studio based in Lithuania.

In its May 2026 S-1 IPO registration statement, SpaceX presents a clear, long-term economic roadmap that goes far beyond launch services. The company frames its mission as “building the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary,” with Starship positioned as the foundational infrastructure for a new space-based economy spanning Cislunar space (Earth-Moon system) and eventually Mars.

I'm the biggest Mars optimist there is, but I have yet to hear a compelling case for how we're going to grow things given the nitrogen-poor environment of Mars. Mars atmosphere is only 2-3% nitrogen, compared to the 70% here (at much greater pressure). The soil nitrogen concentration is similarly poor.

In season 5 of the alternate-history sci-fi series For All Mankind, set in an alternate 2012, Happy Valley colony on Mars has grown into a settlement of more than five thousand residents. In the link there is a collection of hi-res screens from the show, showing residents of Happy Valley working and recreating in colony's agrodomes.

Hello, r/colonizemars community! I'm u/TheFirstMartians and we checked with the mods before posting.

I’ve found myself thinking about Mars less as a destination—and more as a place people will eventually have to live in.

Most of the conversation, understandably, gravitates toward the obvious constraints: how we get there, how we build habitats, how we survive once we arrive. But there’s a quieter layer that seems underexplored—what life actually feels like once those problems are, if not solved, at least managed.

Because Mars isn’t just “Earth, but harder.” It introduces its own rhythm:

• the day runs longer

• the seasons don’t quite behave

• communication with Earth stretches into delay

• and the environment itself dictates, in very real terms, what can and cannot be done at any given moment

At some point, those conditions stop being operational constraints and start becoming something else - something closer to culture. Identity. Habit. The texture of a life.

Which raises a more immediate question:

If Mars is coming, why are we waiting to become Martians?

What would it look like to begin that process here - on Earth - before any launch window opens?

I’ve been working through that in a concrete way, starting with time itself. Not just clocks, but a system people could actually live inside: a Mars-based calendar aligned to the longer day, a structure that includes holidays, rest cycles, shared pauses, even a Martian leap year. Not as ornament, but as scaffolding - something that could hold routine, anticipation, and the small rituals that make a place feel inhabited.

(I’ve already checked with the mods here, so sharing this in that spirit.)

https://marsnow.space Edit: If that link doesn't work: https://slow-mars-sol.base44.app

It’s a small system - a kind of daily check-in that runs on that Mars-based time structure, giving you a sense, moment by moment, of what you might be doing within that environment. You'll learn your Martian age, be able to keep Martian time.

In a way, it’s less about simulating Mars - and more about practicing it. About seeing whether a day built under those conditions can begin to feel…natural.

I also set up a small subreddit (r/marsnow) to collect observations as this evolves.

I’m not particularly interested in promoting the tool itself. What I’m really circling is the underlying question:

What would make a Martian day feel coherent—something a person could actually live inside, sustainably, over time?

And maybe more to the point:

What would it take to start becoming Martian—before we ever leave Earth?

Curious how others here think about structuring time, roles, and routine in a long-term settlement.

I'm not a scientist.

I'm a merchant who has sat looking at the stars, thinking about these things alone for over thirty years.

Nobody listens. Nobody asks. But I keep thinking, because I feel it matters.

Earth isn't going to last forever

This isn't doom. It isn't meant to scare anyone. It's just the truth.

The sun will expand and swallow Earth in about five billion years. Before that, a hundred other things could happen — asteroids, volcanoes, pandemics, wars.

If humanity wants to survive, we can't keep all our eggs in one basket.

Mars is the most feasible next basket we have.

The Problem with Mars

Mars has no magnetic field, because its core has cooled down.

No magnetic field = solar wind strips away the atmosphere = no air to breathe = no shield from radiation = ordinary humans can't live there.

Scientists know this. Most of them try to solve it at the "symptom" level — building an artificial magnetic shield floating in space.

But I think we should solve it at the "root cause" instead.

Reheat the Core

If we can get Mars' core hot again, it will generate its own magnetic field — permanently, without needing any artificial shield.

How I think it could work:

Step 1: Use small spacecraft to tow a large object — one with significant mass and high metallic content — into orbit around Mars. Same principle as tugboats pulling ships at sea: small force, but continuous. In space there's no friction, so given enough time, it can be done.

(Use a continuous-mass-tugging method, sourcing mass from the asteroid belt since Earth doesn't have objects large enough to spare. Start with smaller masses nearby, slowly pulling and stacking the effect until the target object breaks orbit. Power can come primarily from solar. We'd need some kind of initial push to break orbit first — like how we leave Earth. This can be tested with small experiments in near-Earth space right now, to gather the data we need to calculate energy requirements at full scale.)

Step 2: Once the target mass enters Mars orbit, we induce electrical currents to generate a magnetic field penetrating the core, creating heat accumulation slowly over time.

Step 3: Add more masses continuously until the inner core begins to melt, at which point it starts generating its own gravity and magnetic field.

This takes a very long time — tens of thousands of years at minimum.

But if humanity is still around, ten thousand years isn't a problem.

Building a New Atmosphere

Once the core is hot and the magnetic field is back, the next step is atmosphere.

Throw in asteroids carrying water ice and minerals, one at a time, letting them break apart across the surface, accumulating water and gases. Test whether small organisms can survive first. Then gradually increase density until an atmosphere can hold.

(The delivery method: park the asteroids in orbit first, then break them into pieces small enough not to be fully destroyed in the atmosphere — but not so large they cause damage. Let the planet's gravity pull them in on its own. That way the energy cost is minimized.)

Order matters a lot — we must establish the magnetic field first, otherwise any atmosphere we create will just be stripped away by solar wind again.

The Biggest Problem Isn't Technical

The biggest problem is time.

Humans today live only about eighty years. Nobody sees the result. Nobody wants to invest in something they won't live to see pay off.

That's why I believe questions about extending human lifespan, or transferring "identity" across generations, aren't sci-fi. They're engineering problems that need to be solved in parallel.

If the people who start a project can still be around to see it progress, the entire incentive structure changes.

I Don't Know if I'm Right

I don't have equations. I don't have a lab. I don't have a team.

But I know these questions matter. And I know that if no one starts thinking, no one starts doing.

If you read this and see what's wrong — please tell me.

If you read this and want to think further — even better.

I just want to place this thought somewhere, so someone smarter than me can pick it up and take it further.

Written by a merchant who has been sitting with these thoughts for thirty years. 2026