It is likely that the colonization of Mars will not be a simple 'Let's go!' affair. Rather, it will be a result of a sustained serious of missions to Mars, perhaps on the lines of the Mars Direct mission or the NASA Mars Reference mission (a.k.a 'Mars Semi-Direct'). Both these mission plans envisage a number of long-stay missions to Mars where astronauts will live on the planet for roughly 18 months at a time. After a number of these missions, it will be possible to become more adventurous, perhaps by setting up greenhouses on the surface to produce food from the Martian soil using specially bred crops (in fact, NASA is investigating this possibility at this moment).

		Artist's impression of two NASA Mars Reference mission habitats connected together. Courtesy NASA/JPL.

The Mars (Semi)Direct habitats are also designed so that they can be linked up to each other to form the rudimentary parts of a permanent base. Since these habitats will not be taken back to Earth by the astronauts, it will be possible to build up a fairly respectable base with only a few missions in the same area.

Slowly, it is thought that the Mars human exploration plan will be ramped up as costs are amortised and brought down with new technologies - more people will stay on Mars for longer periods of time and additional bases will be set up. Eventually - and inevitably - you will have the first permanent residents on Mars and the first child born on another planet. And that's when the true colonization of Mars will have begun.

Surface habitats based upon the Mars (Semi)Direct habitats aren't the only option for bases - in any case, by the time you have someone staying on Mars permanently a whole new mission architecture and infrastructure will have sprung up with roomier and more comfortable habitats.

And there are other options. Large habitats could be set up such as sealing off lava tubes, or placing domes over craters, or simply very large inflatable structures. Lava tubes on Mars will be much larger than those on Earth due to the lower gravity. Inflatable structures are very much popular with mission planners at the moment since they have a very good mass-to-volume ratio, so you could take more, or larger, structures than for the same mass of solid structures. The viability of inflatable structures is yet to be proved, but there are plans to establish an inflatable Mars prototype habitat on the International Space Station - and if it can work in the vacuum of space, it will work on Mars.

		Artist's impression of a mission to Mars. Note the inflatable greenhouse in the foreground. Courtesy Mike Carroll.

Inside these, colonies could slowly flourish and grow, allowing the development of communities and the emerging Martian civilisation with a completely different cultures and ideals. At this point, the colonists will be using 'native' Martian materials to construct new structures and tools. After all, it will be much cheaper and quicker to make objects on Mars instead of shipping them all the way from Earth. As an example, NASA scientists have discovered how to bake bricks from Martian regolith ('soil') which could be used in new buildings. It is also believed that a large variety of metals and alloys could be extracted and purified from the regolith since the magnesium content is very high.

Humans have always strived to learn and expand – settling Mars is only a natural extension of that trait.

We shouldn't just think of the technological challenges, though. Many will ask what the point is of colonizing Mars - much like those who ask what the point of space exploration is.

In the same way as Puritan colonies were established in America, we might see other extremist colonies being founded on Mars – they might see it all as a chance to create a new, different world, according to their ideals. All of those who go to Mars will go to create a new, better, world. It just depends on what they think counts as a better world. Will it be one with free education for all, with true democratic voting and a global government? That’ll have to be left to our descendants.

Giving people a chance to make a new world is well worth any money we spend

But if we can just give them the chance of making a new world, give them the chance of leaving our past disagreements and past prejudices behind, then it’s well worth any money we spend. For some people, creating a new world is a dream. We have the money, the power, and the technology to realise that dream now.

There are many problems on Earth. War, starvation, disease, political unrest, terrorism, global warming, the ozone layer. The list goes on and on. So why should be spend our money on Mars instead of these projects? Why should we steal away this money from apparently worthier causes?

As it is, no government on the world would spend money on a mission to Mars if it did not have the backing of its voters. And neither would any private organisation if it didn’t have the money from the public. People say that we could spend $20 billion on education, on feeding the poor, on wiping out crime, on improving healthcare. But would that make conditions any better in the long term? If we spent this money on a Mars mission, it wouldn’t simply disappear into space, it would be paid to scientists, to engineers, to administrators, even to lawyers. And we wouldn’t be stealing this money from anyone. A manned Mars mission will never take place if we did not have the support of the public.

		Could solar sails help to bring down the cost of travelling to Mars? Courtesy NASA/JPL.

Mars has all the resources anyone would ever want, so any settlement there would not be forever shipping over metals or gases from Earth. They could be completely self-sufficient. So, people argue, what good is it for Earth to spend tens of billions of dollars setting up a colony for a few hundred people on Mars, when Earth gets nothing back? In the short term, not much. But as technologies will inevitably and rapidly improve, the cost of sending a family to Mars, together with food and equipment will fall to an affordable cost. With advances such as nuclear propulsion, solar sails and spaceplanes, travelling to Mars will be made cheaper and quicker. These aren’t science fiction advances – they’ve been fully researched and in some cases, prototypes are being built.

In the near future, families will be able to travel to Mars using their own money. If we do launch a mission to Mars, and we do set up a permanent, self-sufficient colony there, it will prove to people that it can be done, that we can live on Mars.

As soon as we see people setting up houses on Mars, going of their own free will, using their own money, we will see the beginnings of a new civilisation. This is when Earth gets its money back. These colonists on Mars will make new technological advances, advances which will be stunning and un-thought of back on Earth. On Mars, they won’t be able to make do with old inefficient technology, they’ll need new groundbreaking techniques which will benefit Earth as well.

There is the potential for humans to live on two worlds, to expand and grow into the solar system. We can give our descendants the chance to begin anew, carrying forward the best of our past, and leaving behind the worst. It might take decades, it might take centuries, but we can, and we will be able to colonise Mars, and change its atmosphere into one which plants and animals, and humans, can live and breathe in. We could give Mars life. It’s not a utopian dream, it’s a serious possibility, and to this author, it's not just a possibility, it's a certainty.

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