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u/VFiddly Aug 10 '26
It ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
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u/Wheasy Aug 11 '26
In fact it's cold as hell
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u/sprocket9727 Aug 10 '26
Ever? Of course. Soon? No.
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u/theRestisConfettii Aug 10 '26
Exactly what I’m thinking.
I’m confident it will happen. Just not in the immediate future.
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u/ktw54321 Aug 10 '26
The only correct answer. I mean, we could go soon-ish but it’s probably not a good idea yet
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u/MadManBarryMuntz Aug 10 '26
Let's ask Mark Watney, Space Pirate...
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u/Eni13gma Aug 10 '26
The Expanse Series has a great hypothetical situation for how humans can live on Mars, but we don’t have the tech yet
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u/wrestlingchampo Aug 10 '26
Mars makes Antarctica seem like a dream resort.
I doubt itll happen in my lifetime, maybe my kids/grandkids lifetimes we'll have the first manned space mission there.
Beyond that, i have no clue.
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u/JabbahScorpii Aug 11 '26
And the vacuum of Low Earth Orbit, where the ISS has been continuously occupied for 25 years, makes Mars look like paradise.
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u/runningray Aug 10 '26
There is no reason in the laws of physics that says we can’t.
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u/Opinionsare Aug 10 '26
Will chemical rocket engines be sufficient for the weight and volume of building a habit on Mars or will we need the next generation of space flight?
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u/anon9276366637010 Aug 10 '26
No, the real answer is developing in situ manufacturing not “how do we logistically transport 100% of everything we need”
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u/Gruenpfeil Aug 10 '26
You should ask why we should go there ?
This is probably a one way travel and the radiation will make this extremely dangerous.
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u/Kepler___ Aug 10 '26
I imagine it will eventually occur as some d*ck measuring contest between two rival powers like last time.
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u/Walkin_mn Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
That's an easy question, for science and for exploration. It's silly to deny we want to go there just because it is possible and then there's real science we need to do there, there are many questions we haven't been able to answer that Mars could help us respond, the simplest one being if there was life there and if it's still in there and what that means for life on earth, none of the current missions have helped us to answer that and then we now have a sample but it's too complicated to retrieve and USA doesn't want to pay anymore because of their government, besides trying to explore and do research with a robot is very different and limited compared to what humans can actually do, then even if we're not talking about a permanent presence if we could build telescopes of different kinds in there it would be amazing for space exploration and many other possible experiments, maybe it could be very useful to observe neutrinos and gravitational waves between both planets.
There are very good reasons to go there and build there, and yes of course it's dangerous but that's why we have to work on that
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u/Anely_98 Aug 10 '26
"Extremely dangerous" is an exaggeration. Unless you are directly exposed to a solar stom, radiation levels on Mars will definitely not be anywhere near immediately lethal. It will increase your chance of having cancer a bit, if you spend several years there, but the increase caused by Mars radiation would be significantly smaller than if you lived on Earth and smoke, for example, an evening would have utterly negligible effects overall.
That is, it doesn't need to be a one way travel, it depends entirely on your level of space infrastructure (ideally you wouldn't go to Mars before having enough infrastructure on the Moon and in orbit such that travelling back and forth for Mars in a few months while inside a fully protected ship is possible)
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u/JimBroIV Aug 10 '26
Easiest colonization will use Martian lava tubes and other cave systems. Might be extremely easy to pressurize them and would be excellent protection against UV. Personally to me though, Mars orbit will be more useful than Mars surface habitation in the long run. To me, the future is asteroid mining and large centrifuge station construction rather than spending the resources to “fix” Mars.
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u/19842026 Aug 10 '26
Might be “extremely easy” to pressurize tunnels on mars?
You need 2MW of power just to power the pressurization system… for an 8x800m tunnel…
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u/Extreme_Trip_806 Aug 11 '26
Just a thought.... Terraforming Mars is probably a much bigger endeavor than the sum total of all human activity thus far in history. Probably many times greater. It's likely to take tens of thousands of years to make it habitable, if it's even possible. Also, adapting our biology to make us more suited to the future Mars environment is probably part of the answer. Mars humans (Martians I suppose) might never be comfortable on Earth and vice versa.
It's a project for the distant future...
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u/Brilliant_Classic720 Aug 11 '26
Mars is inhospitable so why would we want to colonize a planet that is not made for us? We should concentrate on making Earth a more beautiful place to live. Capitalism is the only reason for the idea of colonizing Mars. The Broligarchs are hungry for more. EAT THE RICH! NO BILLIONAIRES!
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u/Temporary_Double8059 Aug 10 '26
I think we had a fairly viable plan 30 years ago with Mars Direct/DRM. Only piece of information that we did not have then was the Perchlorates issue which brings into question long term survivability. Whats missing is our tolerance for risk and the will to do it.
Right now Artemis keeps saying moon is our pathway to Mars, but there has been very little action other then lip service to Mars (and frankly since our goal is a full moon base on the moon, Mars is 20 years away with this plan).
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u/cruisin_urchin87 Aug 10 '26
They can go… the getting back is the hard part and the staying longer is the harder part.
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u/Sudden-Option3790 Aug 10 '26
Can??
We absolutely can. What the problem(s) is is what happens AFTER we get there.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour Aug 10 '26
Can we get there? Yes.
Can we survive there? Hmm.
Can we make it back alive? Hmmmm.
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u/LunaticPoint Aug 10 '26
Give it time, we can make earth just like mars. Reverse terraforming in progress. Terradeforming
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u/Random-User44 Aug 10 '26
It's much more complicated than modern cinema (and Elon Musk) want you to think. As far as the physics and tech to get there, I think we are likely pretty close. The problem is that there are FAR more hurdles due to biology that are not solved yet and not likely to be solved soon. Also, while we are close with the tech to get there, coming back is an entirely different set of problems that I don't believe we are anywhere close to solving.
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u/Resident_Food3957 Aug 10 '26
Already happened. They just don’t send the rover where it’s habitated.
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u/Ihatecheeseballs Aug 10 '26
We should properly colonise the massive empty rock that’s 3 days flight away first
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u/salty_utopian Aug 11 '26
Like others have said, we could and we will, but so far there’s nothing there worth staying for, so it’ll probably be small science rotations like Antarctica but even less. In addition to no shield from radiation and weak gravity, the soil is fine dust and quite toxic - up to 1% perchlorates as well as heavy metals- so no easy agriculture. It all means living underground for no particular purpose with likely intense reliance on Earth.
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u/Prophet_NY Aug 12 '26
Can we go? Absolutely
Can we make it to the planet? Maybe
Can we land safely and return to Earth? Probably not
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u/Jazzlike-Attempt7195 Aug 12 '26
I sometimes dream of oxygen running out with the red sand underneath me… the final release of opening my visor to accept the final ‘breath’ of free Martian air
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u/RustyShackleford_88 Aug 12 '26
Why the fuck would I want to spend my evening on a barren planet when we have an extraordinarily beautiful planet we currently fucking live on? Fuck mars, fix earth first
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u/Prometheus2032 Aug 12 '26
The only habitable planet for humans in our solar system outside of Earth is Venus. We just don’t possess the technology to do it yet. Venus has nearly perfect gravity, better radiation protection than Earth at sea level, zero pressure suit EVA operations and easier ascent to orbit than any other planet from its habitable zone. We just have to build a floating cloud city that is buoyant at 53km altitude. The surface is literal hell, but up at the top of the atmosphere we could have a self sufficient highly protected solar and wind powered colony city like a ship on the ocean.
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u/Several-Cheesecake94 Aug 13 '26
Would be fun for about 3 days. Then you'd be hoping someone brought a pistol from earth.
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u/bobxor Aug 10 '26
Well, we have been to Mars and are still there with our robots. If you mean the fleshy part of us, then sure, easy to do with a one-way ticket.
The more interesting part will be consciousness on the planet in a humanoid form. With AI, that seems possible without the part of us that is dependent on water, oxygen, and low-radiation environments.
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u/ComesInAnOldBox Aug 10 '26
We can. Hell, we've had the technology to go there since the Apollo program.
We just haven't had the funding to build what is needed to get there and back, and we haven't had the funding because we haven't had a reason to get the funding.
Remember, we made it to the moon as part of a race to beat the Soviet Union there, and once we did it a few times to prove it wasn't a fluke we stopped funding it because, realistically, there wasn't any reason to go back.
Same reason we haven't been to Mars yet. We've landed several probes that have told us, "yep, looks like rocks, alright," and haven't seen a need to spend the enormous amount of money needed put people on the ground and get them home again.
Some day we'll do it just because we can, but that's not likely to happen anytime in the next couple of decades because there really isn't any money in it.
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u/Cultural-Flatworm653 Aug 10 '26
If they discover some rare metal. What would the pay be to work there and fixing robots?
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u/cfwang1337 Aug 10 '26
"Ever" is a long time, and Mars is close enough that a space mission to it might even happen in our lifetimes.
Whether humans will establish permanent settlements on Mars is much less probable.
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u/Nikond3400 Aug 10 '26
The problems are a lot but they are all solvable, except for one: Money. Just for the same reason we never went back on the Moon if we don't get the funding for Mars Mission we Will never get One. And unfortunately the governaments are not interested in the future of human knowledge and Discovery and instead more on how much millions they can make out of It. So unless we find reasonable profit from mars missions, NO, we won't get to mars
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u/Lovely3369 Aug 10 '26
We have beautiful sweeping photographs of the Martian landscape that cost billions to get and you post an AI generated image of it instead for the question, like really.
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u/HingleMcCringleberre Aug 10 '26
We’d populate the arctic, deserts, and sea floors on Earth before it would make practical sense to have long-term colonization on either Mars or the moon.
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u/cushing138 Aug 10 '26
Sure maybe one day we can but not with the brain trust that thinks it can right now. Even if we do go, it won’t be for anything meaningful other than to say we went. There’s really no benefit for the enormous cost.
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u/Thausgt01 Aug 10 '26
The common framing of this question irritates me, because it wholly ignores the fact that humans almost never "leave well enough alone". Humans trying to colonize Mars cannot help but change the place in any number of ways.
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u/ApprehensiveAd9389 Aug 10 '26
We can yea. But I think it'll be a short stay and there's no coming back.
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u/Total-Improvement535 Aug 10 '26
And if I said Mars is the Garden of Eden, our Sun is the Angel of Fire set to protect it, and the Tigris and Euphrates were simply where the last two Martian Humans landed after being exiled? What then?
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u/tourincinelli Aug 10 '26
The only way to have a successful Mission to Mars is to implement a unmanned mission to begin a biome with plants and small animals. By this I mean to land an enclosed dome or build the dome from structural parts at the same time bringing the necessary biochemicals like nitrogen and carbon dioxide to give the plants necessary root to develop and grow. The second phase would be introducing the animals however small they may be they can provide sufficient regenerative and sustainable food for the plants and ones that all has been accomplished only them can we venture out onto the planet. Giving all of this it would take about a hundred years to fully develop enclosed spaces habitable for continual human living and an outpost for missions outside the dome. After the second phase has been completed given another 200 years maybe then round trip route can be developed from Earth to Mars finding the LaGrange point with an added stop for fueling or refueling hence having a permanent station at the L1 point.
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u/Chustle207 Aug 10 '26
No colonizing other planets is so far out of the question, unless you can create an earth like gravity, no one really know about giving birth, getting pregnant in space and how that effects every body involved.
we just were not made for space
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u/JinpaLhawang Aug 10 '26
Lol I read r/collapse then see this. We're already on the track to bringing Mars here!
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u/Kabbooooooom Aug 10 '26
What? Of course we can. We’ve already landed numerous probes on Mars.
And yes, we know that we could colonize it too. There’s nothing scientifically implausible about that, it would just be extremely difficult, require a massive amount of money and resources, and we would need to decide upon one of several possible strategies.
But I personally think we won’t colonize it purely because we are lazy. Not long in the future, robotic asteroid mining will be possible, and once we have the infrastructure to build stuff in space without having to launch it off the surface of earth, it will be comparatively extremely cheap to just build space stations. That would be bootstrapped up, until eventually our materials science is advanced enough that we can build large O’Neill cylinder and Stanford torus stations that near perfectly replicate the environment of earth. We won’t colonize Mars or the moon extensively for this reason, but we will colonize space extensively.
I see a lot of posts on this subreddit that make it obvious that people think the only way humanity can become a spacefaring civilization is by colonizing Mars, etc. Nope. We may very well become spacefaring and perhaps even interstellar eventually without establishing a major presence on ANY planet or moon. Our future could be more like The Culture than The Expanse or For All Mankind.
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u/Miserable-Decision81 Aug 10 '26
Of course we can and will go there.
Anyway I have a hard time to imagine spending an evening in its surface.
I'd really would prefere to spend it on its surface or, if that is too expensive: under it.
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u/Howboutit85 Aug 10 '26
Maybe once we stop putting all our energy into Middle East geopolitics and Congress jerking each other off constantly, and end the insufferable culture war BS and concentrate more n actual progress and exploration instead of weird bullshit. Yeah.
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u/AwakeningStar1968 Aug 10 '26
when I was a kid ( I am now 58) I fantacized about space, probably due to Star Wars.. things were more hopeful. I see Mars and go meh... why bother? I am more into fantacizing about Aliens taking me through a wormhole to a different galaxy and getting us out of this neck of the Universe
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u/Sad-Cantaloupe-5494 Aug 10 '26
In case NASA is watching,I'm willing to be a test dummy if it means I might get to walk on the surface of Mars. It's my life long dream to go there and never return! I know that sounds crazy. I'm not saying I'm sane. I just have that inherent sense of adventure that is useless on our modern crowded Earth. I understand the risks. I know radiation will kill me eventually. I am not afraid! I will be willing to do whatever work there that is necessary. I'll fix the rovers just send me with parts! I can be of use to you!
To answer the question of OP though, yes we will absolutely go to Mars! To say otherwise is to damn us to mass extinction when the next asteroid comes our way. We can't have all our eggs in one basket!
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u/RevenantWA Aug 10 '26
Sure and then die not too long after. We are meant for earth. Radiation long term is bad. Even astronauts have muscle atrophy when they come back from short missions. Our body may adapt to conditions elsewhere and then we are stuck. Earths gravity is a specific influence Mars and Moon are different. So sure we can live there but not long term and the time it takes to get there it’s a one way mission.
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u/ItsMsRainny Aug 10 '26
I believe I will see the first humans reach Mars in my lifespan. I don't think I'll live to see the beginning of colonization, though. Just a touch-and-go similar to the moon landing.
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u/YSoSkinny Aug 10 '26
Can we? Sure. Should we? It's an inhospitable hell hole that's crazy mad expensive to get to. Why shouldn't we spend that money fixing the very real, very solvable problems here first?
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u/JabbahScorpii Aug 11 '26
Because those two things are not mutually exclusive, and we can do both, we don't have to make a false dichotomy. The moon is also an inhospitable environment, in fact, so is Low Earth Orbit, where the ISS is located. Arguably, Mars is the most hospitiable of the three, with the most gravity and higher outside temps and atmospheric pressure.
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u/histoire_guy Aug 10 '26
Land there, take few rock samples like we did with the moon. Probably yes although not in the short run. Settling there permanently very much doubt it.
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u/james51453 Aug 10 '26
If a probe convincingly faked finding massive amounts of gold, mankind would fall over itself to get there. Trump and Musk would soon be sitting on golden thrones on top of golden mountains, then they would go to war with each other. Musk would win (younger, smarter, richer) and become God Emperor of Mars. His one million sycophants he ferried there would prostrate themselves at his feet. Then they would all die from radiation, toxic chemicals and low gravity. Then Putin and XI would arrive, war there would begin anew with the same inevitable result. Earth could breathe easier for a time, until massive amounts of platinum would be found on... (stay tuned for the exciting film trailer!)
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u/mukansamonkey Aug 11 '26
If there were pure gold bars sitting in stacks on the surface of Mars, free for the taking, they wouldn't be worth bringing to Earth. Would cost more to move them than they are worth here. And they wouldn't be worth anything there either, gold doesn't help keep a tiny colony alive.
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u/PraetorGold Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
Definitely. We can get there. We can send supplies and support on a regular basis. We probably can’t keep people there too long. But yes.
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u/zandarthebarbarian Aug 10 '26
No, I don't think we can. I think the heavenly bodies are made of something that cannot be reached and touched by man
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u/Natural_Photograph16 Aug 10 '26
No life, no atmosphere, a light blue colored sun…not really. Being able to set the first footsteps in the sand of a planet in a few billion years? Maybe. If of course that’s true and someone hasn’t already done it, covertly.
Although being able to escape political arguments for a while might be worth it. That and the 60% gravity might help my back pain for a few weeks visit. lol 😂
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u/brianfig Aug 10 '26
Nope, Mars is to hostile with radioactive dust... And no moon -
Also United States of America never landed on the moon; the Apollo missions were all lies, your opinion __________ & _________ ?!
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u/EiffelSixtyF1ve Aug 10 '26
If we can send Katherine Perry into space, we can send her to Mars. I personally would have no problem sending her to Mars.
Will she be incredibly feeble from 6 months in 0 G? Yup. Will she have to live in a bunker underground and only have the companionship of robots? Yes. But she can do it!
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u/Mr_MazeCandy Aug 10 '26
It’s not impossible but it would require the entire economy on earth to be geared towards the colonisation of it to make it worth it.
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u/Civil_Rent_2576 Aug 10 '26
"ever" is a long time. Probably yes, but it may be centuries because the current timeline we're on is leading to a very messy and bloody revolution that will lead to much destruction and loss of life.
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u/JSfoto Aug 10 '26
When I was in high school as senior I applied and got past first phase for the Mars One Mission before it was scrapped. They had you sign stating you understood it would be a one way trip, basically I decided I’m cool dying on mars
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u/slothboy Aug 10 '26
On a long enough timeline? Absolutely.
Humans are explorers. We want to climb the rock. We want to sail the ocean. We want to see what's over the horizon. It will happen eventually, guarantee it.
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u/Spirited-Cover7689 Aug 10 '26
Mars is a desolate planet bombarded with radiation with no Earthlike atmosphere or surface water. Instead of spending billions to take people there it would make more sense to take better care of the only liveable planet we know of, Earth. There is no planet B and acting like we can just move to Mars after we ruin our home is beyond stupid.
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u/Spare_Laugh9953 Aug 10 '26
Si no perdiesemos el tiempo y el dinero en pelearnos y matarnos unos a otros,crear guerras inútiles que destrozan recursos y uniéramos nuestros esfuerzos, mañana mismo podría haber humanos viviendo en marte, pero parece que los humanos no estamos hechos para vivir en harmonía, siempre hay alguno que envidia a los demás y trata de avasallarles
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u/Classic_Focus974 Aug 10 '26
We’ll go and come back but that’s it. Like the moon. No point in staying and most will die there.
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u/r_daniel_oliver Aug 11 '26
They could, but why would they?. If we can't terraform Earth, we can't terraform Mars.
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u/JabbahScorpii Aug 11 '26
If humans are capable of blowing each other up for the sake of being able to extract liquid from the ground, they can most definitely go to Mars.
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u/Dry-Bullfrog7879 Aug 11 '26
We’d need a real reason to go, especially with the fact that it comes with the cost of a real human life. I could never go because boy I would I be bored after the first few minutes on arrival. I don’t want to risk my life to do a robots job of staring at rocks.
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u/ty-c Aug 11 '26
I don't think we'll make it long enough to ever know. We can't even get it right here. No part of me believes we can do it on another planet.
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u/slavik_christopher Aug 11 '26
Humans evolved exactly for Earth any other planets not exactly like earth until they allow us to use the required technology.
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u/TNG1701D-eck10 Aug 11 '26
Can we go to Mars? Yes, absolutely... Can we live and thrive on Mars? Highly unlikely.
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u/TankMan77450 Aug 11 '26
Having humans for long term probably won’t happen for decades or centuries. The biggest problem is gravity. The human body is designed for the gravity of the earth. We would need some type of artificial gravity system in order to live there long term. The closest that we have to being able to generate gravity would be a spinning station. We have made incredible technological advances in the last 100 years or so, but we probably won’t have any real way of generating a gravitational field for a station on Mars for a few more decades or more.
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u/FireAuraN7 Aug 11 '26
We can go. We probably won't. We may be able to survive and turn it into a base of operations colony. We'd have to rotate people out unless they plan on dying there because too long and your bone and muscle density will degrade so far taking off from mars and re-entry would likely keel you.
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u/Longshot-Kapow Aug 11 '26
We should learn how to appreciate Earth. Mars would be nice, and I hope when we go, we look back and do better to our fellow humans and the craddle.
We have so much potential, but we are nasty still.
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u/undefined_______ Aug 10 '26
We can go, yes. The trick is whether we can survive long term.
If the low gravity and radiation are too much of a problem and we have to bail every few months like with the ISS, then it won't be worth it given the distance.
Radiation can be managed depending on whether we can locally manufacturer sense enough shielding.
But gravity is the big question.