[notfish]

“People underestimate how nasty America is. We’d be better off building colonies in the Sahara than in America.”

Radiation on the surface of mars is only ~2.5x the radiation in the ISS. There’s no air there, either. Perchlorates suck for humans but are great as rocket fuel - there’s a double incentive to strip them out of the soil, and there are known mechanisms for doing so. The low gravity may or may not be an issue, but people have survived a year on the ISS in 0G so it’s probably surmountable.

Yes, living on Mars is much, much harder than living on Earth. No, it isn’t impossible.

[singularity2001]

not impossible but also not viable. many decades before we create a sustainable "Biosphere X" experiment on earth, robots will be way better equipped to settle the solar system ... for themselves.

[s1artibartfast]

Robots may be better equipped for the task, but that doesn't mean humans can't prefer humans.

[tuatoru]

Living in submarines is possible, too, for certain values of "living" and for certain durations of time.