Mars Colonization

The nearest planet to Earth is the red planet, otherwise known as Mars. The red planet was named after the Roman god of war, who was prayed to on the battlefield to aid in an army's slaughter of their opponents. Instead of Mars being a tool for carnage, it can instead be used as a beacon of hope. A brand-new world for humanity to thrive on, and hopefully, do better on. Although its environment is harsh, with its frequent dust storms, an almost nonexistent atmosphere, and almost no liquid water. It simply needs a makeover; this is where terraforming comes into play. Humanity has come to the point where we wield the power to change entire worlds to our suiting or detriment. This can easily be seen with the changes we have made to Earth. Of course, this process would take an incredibly long time, humans likely won't even be able to step on the surface without a suit for centuries but there are things we can do to get to this point in the far future and this article will be discussing the methods in which we can colonize, terraform, and govern Mars to make is a steppingstone for humanity to spread out amongst the cosmos.

The most important aspects that humans would need to change about Mars is its utter lack of liquid water and excess radiation. Thankfully, both of these have the same root cause. This root is it's atmosphere. The atmosphere can regulate temperature while blocking out radiation from the sun. A chemical that is used that you may have heard of is carbon dioxide. As it is a greenhouse gas it can heat up a planet but can also block out harmful UV radiation. The effects have been thoroughly researched due to their negative effects on Earth but can aid human colonization of Mars. Distributing Carbon Dioxide throughout the Martian atmosphere would eventually lead to the polar ice caps melting while making it at least survivable to live on the Martian Surface with some radiation protection.