• Question: how long could we live on mars

    Asked by whchris to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 3 Jul 2012. This question was also asked by wharmandayd.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 3 Jul 2012:


      Oooh I don’t think we could live on Mars at all as it is because the atmosphere would kill us. If we made some sort of greenhousey type thing that had air we could breathe then maybe we could live for a bit longer. We would have to work out where we could get our food and water from though.

      I wonder what the others think…

    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 3 Jul 2012:


      Emma’s right – without some serious tools and engineering, we’d be dead in seconds!

      But some people think it might be possible to ‘terraform’ Mars. The idea behind terraforming is that a planet can be changed through various techniques to become different in some way (usually safer to live on). With the right knowledge about how our atmosphere formed, it might be possible to provide Mars with an artificial atmosphere of its own!

      There are lots of differences between Earth and Mars, though, not least the distance from the Sun. It might never be possible to live on Mars as happily as we live here.

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