Would it be possible to live on Mars?

Answer 1

Yes, in some enclosed colony. or we terraform it that would take centuries or better yet, detonate nuclear warheads there and increase the greenhouse gases to warm it enough to melt the polar ice caps. that would work. Disarmament, mars' warming then instant terraforming. Cool!

Answer 2

We are able to live on the earth because: earths gravity is large enough to hold down the atmosphere; not true of Mars. The earth has a magnetic field that repells cosmic rays and solar winds, and this magentic field is thought to be generated from the molten core of the planet; Mars (and Venus) doesn't have a molten core. So terraforming is in the area of, well, impossible. The same goes for Venus. No molten core and because of the ratio of its orbit to planetary rotation (and I forget the term for this right now), only one side is ever facing the sun, so even if you cleaned the air up, one side would get baked and one side would be 500 degrees below zero - and baked in cosmic rays from space.

It's a large universe, certainly, with a lot of stars, but, as much as we hate to say it, life isn't easy. Conditions have to be right. They don't have to be "just right" but anything outside of that is impossible. Enough gravity, days and nights, a protective magnetic field - and all of this has to be stable and continuous for billions of years so that life has a chance to grow (if for some reason the mag. field goes away, all life is destroyed -- all of it, and you have to start over again) and become something you can talk to or eat.

You would need Star Trek level tech to live on Mars. Force sheilds to protect from asteroids, big and tiny, that burn up in Earths atmosphere, and protection against cosmic rays, and the ability to maintain an artificial earth like environment. So, maybe in the 24th century... perhaps not even then.

Answer 3

Yes. We just need to figure a way to create a stable atmosphere on mars. Mars as you know doesn't have air like earth and is more of a desert than anything. I think for mars to be a liveable planet we need to transport plants to the planet and quite a bit of earth's soil. I don't know what Mars's underground soil is like (LAVA). I think for now the scientists at NASA still need to do their Research on the red planet Mars.

Answer 4

Maybe. The way Mars is now, people would need space suits and pressurized buildings to live there. The atmosphere on Mars is much thinner than on the Earth, only about one percent as dense. Most of that thin air is made up of carbon dioxide. There is very little oxygen. It is also very cold. Daytime temperatures might reach above freezing only near the equator, and even there the night time temperatures would be far below zero.
It might be possible, however, to change the climate of Mars to make it more like the Earth. This planetary engineering is called "terraforming". Of course it has never been tried yet, but it is an exciting idea. Some scientists think that terraforming is possible, but others are skeptical.

Basically, terraforming Mars would be done by putting the greenhouse effect to work for us. The greenhouse effect happens when carbon dioxide gas (CO2) acts sort of like an insulating blanket to trap heat in the atmosphere. The polar ice caps on Mars are made up of both water ice and dry ice. Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. The idea is to melt the polar ice caps by spreading some kind of dark dust on them. The dark coating would absorb heat from the sun, raising the temperature enough to melt the frozen carbon dioxide underneath. The CO2 would go into atmosphere, making the air denser and creating a greenhouse effect which would raise the temperature even further. Eventually, it would get warm enough to melt the frozen water in the polar caps and under the ground. This liquid water could then be used to grow plants that would further darken the surface of the planet, holding in more heat, and converting the CO2 in the air into oxygen for people to breathe.

I wouldn't start packing a suitcase yet, though. Even if it would work, terraforming could take a long time. Some estimates are ten thousand years or more.

As I said, some scientists (including me) are skeptical about the whole idea. Even if it would work, could it be maintained? Would the new atmosphere be stable, or would Mars eventually change back to something like its current state? For one thing, Mars is smaller than the Earth and has weaker gravity, so it may have a problem holding a dense atmosphere of CO2 and oxygen. The big problem is that Mars lacks some important things that control our atmosphere here on Earth.

Concerns about the greenhouse effect and potential global warming on Earth have led scientists to take a closer look at what controls climate on this planet. One very important factor in maintaining our global climate is the fact that we have oceans. Roughly two thirds of the Earth's surface is covered by water. Over long periods of time the oceans control and limit the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere because of something called carbonate equilibria. Mars has no ocean to stabilize and regulate the concentrations of gasses in its atmosphere, and there is probaly not enough frozen water on the planet to create an ocean. Although there is evidence that water has flowed on the surface of Mars at some time in the past, there is no evidence that there were ever any oceans.

The presence of life itself plays a role in regulating the atmosphere of the Earth. Plants, algae and plankton use CO2, store carbon and produce oxygen on a massive scale. Plants also require nitrogen, the most abundant gas in our atmosphere. Nitrogen is lacking on Mars, and melting the ice caps would not produce it. Mars also has no ozone layer to shield its surface from the Sun's ultraviolet radiation, so plants brought from the Earth may have a hard time living there.

I also think that tectonic activity in the crust may have a very important role in maintaining our atmosphere on Earth (this is just my idea, I don't know how many other scientists would agree). Volcanoes and geothermal areas constantly pump huge volumes of gasses into our atmosphere, mostly CO2. Subduction of carbonate rock on the ocean floor recycles carbon that has been deposited in the sea. Plate tectonics may be vital in maintaining the carbon cycle and stabilizing the composition of the atmosphere on a scale of millions of years. Mars doesn't have active tectonics as far as we know, and certainly not plate tectonics like on Earth. No volcanic activity has been detected and no geothermal areas have yet been discovered. There are some huge volcanoes on the surface of Mars, but we don't know how long it has been since they were last active.

So could it be possible to live on Mars? Possibly, but probably not, at least not the way we now live on Earth. Even if we can't expect a large migration to the Red Planet, it should be possible to establish some relatively small bases there. People could probably use the ice caps as a source of water, and the carbon dioxide could be used to grow plants inside UV-protected greenhouses. The plants could produce both food and oxygen for the bases, but the bases would still have to be enclosed and pressurized for people to live there. Scientists at the bases could study the geology and climate of Mars, find clues to the planet's past, and maybe figure out some way to make terraforming work.

Answer 5

At present we cannot.

The factors for life to exist does not exist on mars.
Namely

.water
.oxygen
.temperature etc

Once we are able to accomodate to such conditions or create conditions for our accomodation we can go to mars.

Answer 6

I didn't think it was possible to live on Venus, but evidently women do.

Answer 7

Can you inhale Iron mixed with Ozone?

Answer 8

Once we get the right technology, it is possible.

Answer 9

yes but we need technology that is better than what we have now.
I don't that's going to happen any time soon though.

Answer 10

yes