Is settling on Mars a necessary or even viable solution to global warming or the population boom?
Colonizing other planets is not a solution to population growth. The motive for colonizing other planets is, first of all, insurance. Any species that has habitation on more than one planet has obviously purchased a kind of insurance policy against global catastrophe on any one planet. That’s a very valuable asset to have. Then there’s exploration. Humans have always been an exploratory species. Mars is a small planet, but because it has no oceans, the surface of Mars is equal to the dry land surface of Earth. So if you start to explore on Mars, you can establish a foothold on a planet that, for practical purposes, can serve as a second Earth. The conditions on Mars are harsh at present, but there’s been a lot of study on terraforming — altering the climate to make it more attractive to humanity. It’s a challenging long-term project, but it may be viable at some point. If there is life on Mars, then a number of questions arise. First, did it arise on Mars separately from Earth? If so,
