Mars colonisation: home truths about moving to another planet

When people talk about colonizing Mars, the phrase evokes a powerful image of thriving communities adopting a new, advanced way of living. Avangard buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, landscaped communal areas, and abundant greenery, including houseplants. This vision conveys the idea of building a new, better life on another planet, marking the first step in our quest to colonize the solar system and potentially establish human roots in the lifeless universe.

Behind the vision of green domes lies a simple truth: Mars cannot sustain life. It can only host what Earth provides.

After all, why not branch out to other planets and beyond? Let's give humanity a chance to seed the barren cosmos with life and knowledge! With the human population growing fast, we have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. However, before we become too absorbed in our ambitious goals, we must assess the real cost of bringing life to an alien world. Settling on another planet is not the same as expanding into new territories on Earth. Because the universe, as it seems, has no plans to accommodate our ambitions and much prefers to keep the human race confined to a single domicile.

Mars would gain only what Earth loses

Mars is not a happy place waiting for us to settle down. It is an alien, hostile environment incapable of sustaining even the most primitive forms of life, like bacteria. The Martian atmosphere has no oxygen for us to breathe. Without protective spacesuits, we would pass out within seconds and die within minutes. But the atmosphere is only the beginning of our problems. The plants would benefit from carbon dioxide, the main component of Martian air. But no export from Earth can withstand Martian radiation. Permanent protection would be required for every animal and plant, every insect, and even for every bacterium essential to maintaining a soil suitable for growth.

All that Mars has is a barren rigolith. Everything that makes Earth alive does not belong there. Exported living organisms would have no chance to survive there and initiate their own cycle of reproduction. Every bit of life exported from Earth would require an extended support system to survive, which would also have to come from Earth: livestock to feed settlers, compost for growing crops, insects for pollination, and even bacteria to maintain a healthy soil.

In essence, we would be moving Earth to Mars, one rocket at a time, at tremendous cost. This leads to an uncomfortable truth: what Mars gains, Earth loses. Colonization of a dead planet can never be considered expansion, but merely a redistribution of life resources from the planet where they belong to the planet that wants to kill them. Rather than colonization, we should focus on establishing isolated research outposts. Mars will not grow forests, oceans, or wildlife. Any presence there will be fragile, artificial, and heavily reliant on Earth's resources.

The evolution argument is not realistic

Some propose a different strategy: introduce microbes and wait for Mars to develop life of its own. However, this concept collapses under basic scientific timescales. Developing stable ecosystems takes millions to billions of years. During that time, Mars would require intensive environmental protection to prevent radiation damage, atmospheric loss, extreme temperatures, and biological collapse. Providing this level of life support on a planetary scale would require astronomical amounts of money and energy, with no guarantee of success. A single major failure, such as radiation exposure, contamination imbalance, or system malfunction, could undo centuries of progress in an instant.

Earth protects life effortlessly. Our magnetic field, thick atmosphere, stable temperatures, liquid water, and gravity work together as a natural life-support system. Mars offers none of these advantages. The atmosphere is too thin to retain heat or oxygen, temperatures swing violently, dust storms can last for weeks, obstructing sunlight, and gravity is only about one-third of Earth's. On Earth, ecosystems recover from disasters. On Mars, recovery would rely solely on human intervention.

Are We Solving the Right Problem?

This raises a fundamental question: what is the purpose of moving life from a planet that naturally sustains it to one that actively tries to destroy it? If the motivation is survival insurance for humanity, it is worth asking whether strengthening Earth’s resilience would be far more efficient than building artificial life bubbles on Mars. Earth already has everything required for life to flourish. Mars requires everything to be manufactured, transported, and continuously maintained. Instead of exporting life into extreme danger, perhaps the real challenge is learning to protect the only planet that has proven capable of sustaining complex life, our own.

Mars exploration has scientific value. Studying another planet helps us understand our own. But pretending that Mars is humanity’s next natural home creates dangerous illusions. Life belongs where it can thrive naturally. Right now, that place is Earth. Instead of dreaming about escaping our home planet, maybe the real frontier is learning how to take care of it. No other planet in the solar system can provide a natural habitat for the human species.

Even beyond the solar system, the idea that we can simply move on to another Earth-like planet remains closer to science fiction than practical reality. The nearest star system, Proxima Centauri, lies over four light-years away, a distance so vast that even our fastest spacecraft would take tens of thousands of years to reach. We have yet to discover any Earth-like planet within realistic reach. And even if one exists, the technological, biological, and economic barriers to reaching and settling it would dwarf anything humanity has ever attempted.

There is no backup planet waiting nearby, no cosmic lifeboat ready for boarding. Earth is not just our current home; it may be the only naturally habitable world we will ever access. The sooner we accept this reality, the sooner we can shift our priorities from escaping our planet to preserving it, and the safer our future will ultimately be.