Here's a thought: did anyone old enough on this forum anticipate the emergence of the internet, say, forty years ago? I certainly didn't, that's for sure. It even slipped through the fingers of most SF writers of the day - although, if my memory serves me well, E M Forster in 'The Machine Stops' came pretty darn close; and that was way back at the start of the 20th Century. The point I wish to make is that the future remains generally unknowable, especially as it applies to technological advances. Therefore, proposing the setting up of a permanent colony on Mars using current technology is one hell of an ask. If I may offer the following quote, here's one take on the challenges of trying to do just this, given present limits:
‘Here we have an arid, frigid, waterless dust-bowl of a world, too puny to retain a breathable atmosphere — assuming, of course, one could somehow be magicked up in the first place. Furthermore, Mars’ present rarefied CO2 atmosphere and absence of a global magnetic field offer no long-term protection against the solar wind, cosmic rays and other lethal forms of space-weather. Then one must consider those biological issues raised by the planet’s low surface gravity. Far from promoting a bounding sense of well-being, its atrophying effects could quickly wreak havoc upon the human constitution, reducing any would-be colony to a community of cripples. If all this isn’t enough to deter future colonisation, the Martian soil itself contains dangerously high levels of toxins, oxidising salts such as calcium perchlorite. So one can forget about growing crops on Mars, still less engage in wild speculations about turning the Red Planet green! Mars therefore must be considered a poisonous, irradiated wilderness, inimical to life as we know it: a kind of ultra-high altitude Atacama Desert all over, and many times more inhospitable. To conclude then, unless the technologies can be found to address these issues, which seem wholly improbable, even over the long haul, all notions of establishing permanent colonies on Mars, never mind terraforming the planet itself, must remain the stuff of purest fantasy.’
That's one view - mine, actually. Yet it is set in the present, or at most the near-future. But what may happen after many tomorrows is anyone's guess. After all, the history of science is littered with naysayers who've been proved wrong, often ignominiously, even hilariously wrong. So what's so special about our present time that allows us to draw a line under any potential future progress, and say that's it, folks?
Personally speaking, assuming buffoons like D Trumpski and his ilk don't call time on us all, I believe we - 'Homo deus', or whatever version we'll be by then - will eventually settle on Mars. And it won't be because of errant space rocks or aliens with the mindset of The Beano. Instead, our descendants will do it just as explorers back in the long ago did it: i.e. following the money (whether it was Inca gold, angling after honours, or just following the reindeer). Remember, whatever Mars itself might bring to the table, it does also happen to be conveniently close to the Main Asteroid belt. Plenty of mineral wealth for the taking there. Probably too the 'Reds' or whatever the Martian settlers choose to call themselves, will have a quiet chuckle about attitudes back in the early 21 century. I hope so. Anything else is a failure of imagination, plus the failure of a halfway decent historical perspective.
Excuse any typos.
