Forget about Mars
 

So much for dreams of terraforming Mars, as per Elon Musk and others.

Most of Mars’ atmosphere lost to space, scientists say - SpaceFlight Insider

Mars lost most of its atmosphere, due to not having a sufficient magnetic field to block solar wind from charging atmospheric molecule and carrying them away.

Unclear how one could recreate an entire planet's worth of atmosphere, but if we did, it would be lost as well.

If only we had a planet that we could turn into a garden...

Gravity is also a problem. Less than 40% of Earth's, however it's the closest rocky planet with any real hope of colonization.
Earth has only so many resources and at some point we wont have a choice but to use the resources of other planets.

What options do we have? Anything else is in another solar system & would take generations to reach.

Two words for ya son...asteroid mining.

Maybe Al Gore can help!

I saw an article last week sometime that suggested that Earth may eventually face the same fate, the slowly fading atmosphere problem. We may have to solve the problem just to stay here, let alone to establish a little living room on a nearby planet.

From elementary school through high school I did a lot of research reading up on planetary exploration, specifically colonizing Mars. The comic books and pulp fiction, I mean research materials I read, always depicted human colonies housed in huge glass bubbles on the surface and burrowed below ground. I don't think it's news to anyone who's been paying attention that Mars doesn't have an atmosphere and human colonists will have to live in some sort of man-made structure to survive and will have to use space suits and vehicles to travel outside the dome.

We need to build a magnetic shield, obviously.
NASA Considers Magnetic Shield to Help Mars Grow an Atmosphere

I thought the atmosphere on Mars was lost due to man-made global warming.

That is also the problem with Venus being so hot as well.

Buts its nothing compared to how we nuked the sun! :cool:

It seems to me that the hundreds of trillions of dollars and hundreds of years it will take to make Mars a home for more than a few hundred people, if that is even possible, could be used to solve pretty much every existential environmental problem we face on earth.

Climate change: 100% renewable energy or fossil with carbon capture, orbiting sun shades, relocation and flood defense, etc. It's not a technological problem, it's a political one.

Food supply: large scale irrigation and agriculture/aquaculture programs, shift to more grain/veg and less meat.

Population: This is only a problem in the least developed regions, and naturally solves itself with as economies become developed and urbanized, also contraception programs help.

Species extinction: Case by case, but most species are not necessary for human survival.

Erhm, their already is a carbon capture system in nature, and we're at very very low carbon levels.

We also have a lot of our water supply locked up in non useable hydrocarbon form in deep wells. Dig it out, and burn it, and we increase our carbon capture system(plants), and we increase our water supply. The carbon capture system is a renewable energy source, as it takes nuclear energy radiated from the sun, and converts it to bio-useable fuels.

All you need is a different viewpoint, rather than new technology.

Controllable sunshade as an active control is not a horrible idea, use a flaps system to regulate the % blocked.

The Earth will get along fine without us. Probably better.

Space = dumb...until someone invents a shield that works with faster than light engines.

Space = dumb...until someone invents some FTL engine so we can really check stuff out.

Space= dumb... until someone figures out how to easily and cheaply get stuff out of Earth's gravity well into orbit.

I'm the biggest sci-fi fan, uber nerd ever, but...until those three things are met space is pretty much a waste of time. Sorry...and I read scifi stories almost every single night (47 year old nerd). -WW

Earth is looking pretty good right now. Any accountants want to chime in?

^^^ This. The human race is a mere blip on the screen...whether it's Yellowstone erupting or the big one hits...enjoy the ride boyz...it won't last forever :)