Nehaveigur

I don’t think I could bear to spend the rest of my life on Mars. Most of it would be in the confined, sterile spaces of a surface module, or, if I’m lucky, in a small inflatable dome, or in a subsurface tunnel. On the rare occasions I get to put on a spacesuit and go outside, or drive a rover, all I’d see would be a barren, monotonous landscape under an alien sky. The novelty would wear off quickly. There’d be no water to swim, no smells except those created by myself and fellow astronauts, no rocks to feel with my hand, no wind on my face, and of course no animals or plants. No clouds.

However, I’d consider spending two or three years of my life to visit Mars. I believe we should go and have a look. Not with robots, but with crewed missions. Not to stay, but to experience what it’s like. The technical challenges are enormous but with enough persistence and resources, they could be overcome.

I think we should visit, but I don’t know if we should attempt to settle. The dreariness of a long-term stay is one reason. The other one is that it’s not obvious if such a settlement, even if it eventually counted a few hundred pioneers, would be sufficiently self-sufficient to appreciably increase the chances of humanity surviving some calamity on Earth. This leaves the question of why we’d want to settle otherwise.

Here’s what Henry Wismayer’s article writes in Noema Magazine:

The actual experience of life on Mars is likely to be more complicated, and not in any way that could be described as good.

I tend to believe he’s right, but we wouldn’t know without first checking out the place. When the first astronauts come back, we’ll want to listen to them carefully. If they say we should settle, and especially if they volunteer to return, then it’d be a good sign that it’s bearable. If they subtly, or not-so-subtly disparage the idea, we should also listen to them too.