This is the kind of thing that makes ambitions to colonize other planets seem silly. If we can't even maintain or control the environment of a planet that is highly livable, how are we expected to terraform Mars?
Mars could be a laboratory for learning to do these things. As a species, we might feel more comfortable trying exotic methods of controlling the climate on Mars than we might here on Earth. Though I am not sure what the ethics are for terraforming a planet which does not appear to currently have life, it might be less ethically and practically hazardous to experiment with global-scale climate alterations on Mars. Such experiments might have fewer severe consequences on Mars (in terms of flora/fauna extinctions, human deaths, etc.) than a similar experiment on Earth.
Wouldn’t you say that the very existence of, say, Las Vegas, is evidence of the possibility of altering an extreme environment to be fit for human conditions?
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Las Vegas exists due to the Hoover Dam.
The simple idea is then to pre-ship a Hoover Dam equivalent to Mars. Some sort of huge solar array, perhaps?
The Hoover Dam only exists because of the Colorado river. The closest Mars has are the polar ice caps, which isn't at all close. (If it were, I doubt Denmark would be sending economic subsidizes to Greenland.)
Wrong benefit. Lake Mead is what gp is talking about.
Well, Las Vegas as a city of lights also exists due to the cheap electricity that the dam provided too.
We don't expect to terraform mars, we expect to build a small environment we can live in there and replicate out.
Colonizing a close planet like Mars only has any sense as a way of avoiding extinction in case something really nasty happens in Earth. I can't think any other motive to try that.
Perhaps our problem on this planet is that there are just too many of us here.