Daily writing prompt

Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?

View all responses

When people talk about colonizing Mars, I sometimes feel like I’ve wandered into a conversation between Marvin the Martian and a bunch of people who have never had to assemble Ikea furniture without losing a screw.

Sure, Mars sounds exciting. It’s mysterious. It’s dramatic. It’s red. It has that whole “final frontier” thing going for it. And thanks to science fiction, we’ve been trained to imagine that humanity will eventually zip over there, build some domes, plant a flag, and get on with life as though we’re opening a new subdivision outside Orlando.

But the more I think about it, the more I think we need to stop using the word colonize so casually.

Do I think humans will ever go to Mars and live there for a while? Probably. Do I think we’re going to “colonize” it in the sense of creating a thriving, self-sustaining society anytime soon? That seems a whole lot less likely.

The biggest issue is logistics. If you go to Mars, you don’t just pack a suitcase and hope there’s a Walgreens when you get there. You have to bring nearly everything. Air. Water systems. Food. Medical supplies. Power systems. Repair parts. Backup repair parts. And probably backup parts for the backup parts. If something breaks on Earth, you call somebody. If something breaks on Mars, you may be staring at the problem while wondering how many months or years it will be before help can arrive.

That’s the part that gets lost when people talk about Mars as though it’s the next great real-estate opportunity. Mars is not a fixer-upper. Mars is a death trap with scenery.

Even resupply sounds more heroic in theory than practical in reality. On Earth, if a place needs supplies, another truck, plane, or ship eventually shows up. On Mars, “resupply” would probably mean another crew or cargo mission bringing what it needs for years, not a steady pipeline of comfort and convenience. If someone says, “We can always send more,” that sounds great until you remember that “more” is another insanely expensive mission to another planet, arriving after a long wait and with no guarantee that everything will go exactly as planned.

And then there’s the living itself. People talk about going to Mars as though the challenge is getting there. Getting there is only the opening act. Staying there is the whole show.

Life on Mars would not look like some glamorous science-fiction future. It would look a lot more like highly trained people living inside a machine, constantly trying to keep the machine from failing. There would be no fresh air, because fresh air is one of Earth’s little luxuries that we barely appreciate until we imagine life without it. There would be no stepping outside for a peaceful evening stroll. There would be no “running to the store.” There would be no calling a plumber. Whoever is there had better be the plumber.

And if you want one image that sums up the reality of Mars, I don’t think it’s some sleek spaceship soaring through the stars. I think it’s Matt Damon in The Martian growing potatoes in his own waste and trying to make the best of it.

That’s not just a movie gag. That’s the reality check.

When a place is so inhospitable that one of the most memorable images associated with surviving there is a guy farming in his own crap, we may want to slow down before talking about it like it’s the next booming suburb.

That doesn’t mean I think the dream is foolish. Human beings are explorers. We’ve always wanted to know what’s beyond the horizon. That’s part of what makes us who we are. There’s something admirable about wanting to reach farther, learn more, and attempt what once seemed impossible. I’m not against Mars exploration. In some ways, I think it’s inevitable that we will continue pushing that direction.

But I do think there’s a difference between exploration and fantasy.

Exploration says, “Let’s see if we can learn how to survive there.”

Fantasy says, “Let’s all move there someday.”

Those are not the same thing.

As things stand now, Mars seems much more likely to become an outpost than a colony. I can imagine a small base. I can imagine rotating crews. I can imagine scientists, engineers, and astronauts spending long stretches there in controlled habitats, conducting experiments and trying to make life possible one system at a time. But a true colony? Families? Children? Neighborhoods? Normal life? That feels like something that would require not just better rockets, but an almost unimaginable leap in travel speed, sustainability, and self-sufficiency.

Honestly, I think the only way Mars becomes a true long-term home for humanity is if transportation changes so dramatically that getting there is no longer a months-long ordeal but something closer to science fiction — hours, days, maybe a couple of weeks. Short of that, Mars remains what it is now: fascinating, forbidding, and a whole lot easier to romanticize from far away.

Maybe that’s the real lesson in all of this.

For all our talk about escaping to another planet, Earth is still the miracle. Here, the air works. The water falls from the sky. Food grows in actual dirt without requiring a life-support team. If something goes wrong, help is usually closer than several million miles away.

So yes, I think humans may someday live on Mars for a time. But if we do, it will look a lot less like Star Trek and a lot more like Marvin the Martian meets Matt Damon with a repair manual, a greenhouse, and a whole lot of desperation.

And if that day comes, I suspect the first great Martian dream won’t be building a utopia.

It’ll be finding a way to stop eating potatoes grown in poop.