Honestly, the moon is a much better goal.
For health reasons you'll want to avoid people spending too much time on Lunar gravity. A similar issue exists on Mars, but causes the opposite result. Due to the time scales involved with sending someone to Mars and returning them, it will be a larger health risk for them to return to Earth than stay on Mars (3-9 month trip to Mars + mission time + 3-9 month trip back).
Think about the impact on culture as well. The sort of perspective you have working at a job site that you will only spend 4 months at is very different from the sort of perspective you have working at a home you expect to die in 30 years later. People that don't expect to come back to Earth may have kids on Mars. Most of the Martian kids will not be able to come back to Earth because of cost and health reasons.
A Mars research station is far more dangerous, more likely to fail, but if it succeeds is far more likely to result in long term habitation of an other planetary body.
The immediate parallel that came to my mind were the first European settlers that came to America.
For instance, Jamestown where they started the winter with 500 people and made it to spring with 60 [1]
It may be an "advantage" but it's also very high risk.
It does, but not much, only 1% the volume of Earth's atmosphere and it is 95% CO2.
Agreeing with your comment but to add: To my knowledge, the biggest problem the athmosphere is causing is the dust storms which can go on for months and which occlude the sky. This means you have to be able to hold out for that period. The Moon has pesky dust too (which got everywhere, it's so small it got through the joints in the space suits).
Also CO2 can be used with electrolysis of water and sabatier reaction to produce methane which can be used as rocket fuel. The fact that the atmosphere is almost pure CO2 makes this much easier to do than on earth. This is also important feedstock for producing plastic.
If you want to build any advance industrial base, you need to be able to produce plastic. This is a huge disadvantage of the moon. You are limited to metals and rock.
Nothing is going to be growing on Mars either, outside of pressurized chambers, which, in the event of a loss of pressure, will kill everyone inside. The atmosphere is so thin that you really aren't gaining anything by not just bringing the carbon with you.
Frankly, the idea of colonizing the Moon or Mars, except in the sense of a temporary science post like the ISS, is a sci-fi fantasy that will never make practical or economic sense. Why am I going to want to build an industrial base on Mars? Why is it economically feasible? How many people are going to want to live in a cramped cage their entire life, never able to go outside, afflicted by low-gravity diseases? What can be produced or gotten on Mars that can't be on Earth for 1% of the effort and cost?
People don't want to live in Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean right now, and these environments are much more survivable than the Moon or Mars, and more economically feasible to boot. Why is anything going to change?
Absolutely but I think you underestimate human desire for adventure and breaking boundaries. Living on the arctic is not something that really push the boundaries on anything.
Helping to establish a human presence on another planet is something a lot of people would find meaningful. Why by another cog in the wheel among 7 billion other people? Why not go to Mars instead a make a significant difference?
Be among the few names who established the first colonies and secured humanity's presence on an alien world?
> Nothing is going to be growing on Mars either, outside of pressurized chambers, which, in the event of a loss of pressure, will kill everyone inside. The atmosphere is so thin that you really aren't gaining anything by not just bringing the carbon with you.
Yes you gain something, are you kidding? How practical is it to have to send a spacecraft to earth every time you need to expand your farm?
With Mars you don't have to. Initially you will. But Mars has all the resources to build everything we have on earth. All resources for expanding farms on Mars exist on the planet.
> which, in the event of a loss of pressure, will kill everyone inside.
It is not like you immediately die when there is a breach. For a large dome, there will be plenty of time to fix the leak.
We can survive global warming for sure. If we can build habitats on Mars we can do it on Earth. However there are many conditions far worse than global warming which we cannot protect ourselves from: All out nuclear war. Asteroid hitting earth etc.
It is stupid to put all eggs in one basket. Colonizing other planets in the solar system safeguards our future.
You got to start early because it is a very time consuming effort. You cannot suddenly begin colonizing Mars once you discover an asteroid on collision course. It will be too late.
It is an effort that will likely take far more than 100 years to complete.
Humanity also risk regression. Global warming while not killing us could cause such regression in our technological ability and science that we simply loose the ability to send things into space. We have been in dark ages many times before in history. It can happen again.
Really, for most planet-wide disasters the thing they do is force us to live a little bit like we'd have to on non-disaster-stricken Mars.
[EDIT] for the record I'm not against Martian exploration or even a Martian colony—I'm susceptible both to the "because it was there" and the "we'll come up with some cool tech in the process" arguments—I'm just very unconvinced Martian colonization is a good path to better survivability for the human species.
Why not allocate 0.00..001% of our resources to ensure that the only intelligent life we know of in the entire universe, has a life insurence.
But still, I believe, only 1/3 of the gravity that the Earth has.
This is the insurmountable problem with human habitation of Mars - we would need to become, in many ways, a different species in order to withstand the very greatly reduced gravity - and humans, as we know them, would succumb to all manner of disease and physical maladies until that transition (millenia ?) took place.
Any discussion of colonizing Mars that does not discuss gravity, front and center, is just silly.
Well, you don’t know that humans can’t survive indefinitely at 1/3 gee. I know that because no one knows that, so let’s not speculate on what the threshold gravity would be before we need to “become a different species” would be.
But I’ll admit, unlike radiation and resource concerns, gravity is something we’re never going to overcome. If humans can’t thrive at 1/3 gee, we will never permanently colonize any terrestrial body in our solar system. However, given the range of adaptations humans present, e.g. to extreme altitude, continuous saltwater diving, or long-distance running, I’m willing to bet we can handle, and adapt to, reduced (not micro) gravity.
Yes, you are correct.
However, I think you'll agree that all evidence points in the direction that 1/3 earth gravity would be highly detrimental, somewhere along the scale that zero-gee appears to be...
I'd be curious to hear about events which would wipe out Earth and the moon but leave Mars intact.