When will we colonize mars?

Mars seems ever more accessible with water present and Matt Damon surviving in isolation, but will people really ever colonize it, asks astronomer Paul Sutter? read more

Let this sink in: at the time of this writing, we don't have the capacity to send humans beyond Low Earth Orbit, the very edge of space, let alone Mars. Getting to Mars is hard, folks, and it requires a lot of new technology. read more

The Mars Society is working to try and colonize Mars. And Red Colony is a great resource of articles about colonizing Mars. Finally, if you’d like to learn more about Mars in general, we have done several podcast episodes about the Red Planet at Astronomy Cast. read more

Additionally, Mars is closer to Earth than the other Solar planets – except for Venus, but we already covered why it's not a very good option! This would make the process of colonizing it easier. In fact, every few years when the Earth and Mars are at opposition – i.e. when they are closest to each other – the distance varies, making certain "launch windows" ideal for sending colonists. read more