Do you like the idea of living in an Antarctic research station? Because that’s WAY more accessible, comfortable and supportable than any foreseeable Mars colony.
Mars is generally much colder than the Antarctic. In fact, a cold winter’s day in the Antarctic is as warm as Mars ever gets, while a cold winter’s day on Mars can be as low as –120°C. The solar radiation threat on Mars is also much greater, and the thin atmosphere outside will soon kill you if you’re not wearing a space suit.
The bases in the Antarctic are dependent upon regular (e.g., 6-monthly) restocking of essential supplies arriving by air, sea and land from sources located about a thousand miles away. In contrast, Mars is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth. The windows between opportunities for successive spaceships to get there in the shortest time are about a year and half apart.
So you’re going to spend years at a time waiting for fresh supplies to arrive from Earth. And you’ll have to spend most – perhaps all – of your time stuck inside a few pods like these.
