Could your next holiday destination be the Red Planet? Elon Musk has boldly predicted that within two decades, Earthlings could be vacationing on Mars, with a million people eventually living in dome habitats. However, leading scientists and authors caution that establishing a self-sustaining civilisation on our planetary neighbour is fraught with monumental challenges.
The Daunting Challenges of a Martian Life
Mars presents a profoundly hostile environment. It is six times smaller than Earth, bitterly cold, and barren. Its atmosphere is so thin it would cause a human's saliva to boil before they suffocated. Add to that lethal surface radiation, planet-wide toxic dust storms, and a journey from Earth taking roughly 10 months, and it's clear why no human has ever set foot there.
Zach Weinersmith, co-author of 'A City on Mars', states that while no physical law prevents it, life would be extremely constrained. "Mars settlers will need to live inside heavily engineered habitats, such as pressurised underground tunnels or caves," he explained. Inhabitants would spend most of their time in these crowded bunkers, venturing out only rarely into the inhospitable, rust-coloured desert.
Survival would depend on greenhouse-style facilities using LED lights to grow crops and create drinking water. Crucially, any colony would remain extremely dependent on Earth for vital supplies, from microchips to backup food. Placing an order for apples would involve a three-minute signal to Earth, followed by a wait of up to two years for the next launch window when planetary orbits align—a cosmic delivery service far slower than any on Earth.
Human Biology and the Need for a Lunar Trial
The physical toll on pioneers would be severe. Professor Ian Crawford, a planetary science expert at Birkbeck, University of London, highlights the months of microgravity during transit, which would leave astronauts arriving in a fragile state with weakened muscles and bones. The long-term effects of Mars's lower gravity on human health and reproduction remain a critical unknown.
This is why Crawford advocates for the Moon as an essential testing ground. "There’s so much to learn about keeping people alive in a hostile environment, and the Moon is the place to learn it," he said. He envisions a Martian scientific outpost within 50 years, similar to an Antarctic research base, housing perhaps a dozen people. He also stresses the need for international cooperation to avoid transplanting Earth's geopolitical conflicts into space.
Terraforming Dreams and a Warning Against a 'Backup Earth'
Some propose a more radical solution: terraforming. Ideas to make Mars more Earth-like include melting ice caps with giant mirrors or releasing greenhouse gases to raise temperatures. While primitive plants might survive, Mars's weak gravity may struggle to retain a newly created atmosphere.
Weinersmith offers a stark warning against viewing Mars as a planetary lifeboat. While humans "can’t make Mars too much worse," he argues the dream of a 'backup Earth' is dangerous, distracting from preserving our own world. Reserve astronaut Dr Meganne Christian echoes this, struggling to see a non-scientific human presence on Mars this century.
Despite the allure—a world once thought to have rivers, now within technological reach—the consensus is clear. While a small research base may be possible in the coming decades, a self-sustaining Martian civilisation free from Earth's supply chain remains a distant and extraordinarily complex prospect, more a testament to human ambition than an imminent reality.
