It would take us over 100 years to even put a thin atmosphere as thin as the last layer of our own. (Wich is considered space). Then any atmosphere able to support life would be blowen away in 100 years.

By the time we're capable of terramorphing an entire planet, we'll have better technology than we do right now. Still, I can't imagine it taking less than 50 years if we were to start terramorphing in 2100.

A lot of the "ingredients" for terraforming Mars would have to be brought to the planet, and without a magnetic field it would have to be continuously supplied. I'd say we're a couple of centuries from that tech at least... and it would take a major effort over many decades even at that point.

Still, I would love it! What a great vacation spot...

Originally posted by Cobalt Kobold:

A lot of the "ingredients" for terraforming Mars would have to be brought to the planet, and without a magnetic field it would have to be continuously supplied. I'd say we're a couple of centuries from that tech at least... and it would take a major effort over many decades even at that point.

Still, I would love it! What a great vacation spot...

You would be dead by then so none of us would love it .... Unless we are lucky enough for them to have found a way to extend human life or to stop death entirely lol !

Originally posted by Ash Dragon:

Originally posted by Cobalt Kobold:

A lot of the "ingredients" for terraforming Mars would have to be brought to the planet, and without a magnetic field it would have to be continuously supplied. I'd say we're a couple of centuries from that tech at least... and it would take a major effort over many decades even at that point.

Still, I would love it! What a great vacation spot...

You would be dead by then so none of us would love it .... Unless we are lucky enough for them to have found a way to extend human life or to stop death entirely lol !

If you mean the time it would take to TRAVEL to mars, then in a few centuries we would surely have the technology to be able to travel in space faster in some way

Originally posted by Ash Dragon:

Originally posted by Cobalt Kobold:

A lot of the "ingredients" for terraforming Mars would have to be brought to the planet, and without a magnetic field it would have to be continuously supplied. I'd say we're a couple of centuries from that tech at least... and it would take a major effort over many decades even at that point.

Still, I would love it! What a great vacation spot...

You would be dead by then so none of us would love it .... Unless we are lucky enough for them to have found a way to extend human life or to stop death entirely lol !

technically you can live forever but technically you would no longer be human

Maybe 100 years.

Think of Space as the Ocean in 2000 BC... That's as far as we've gotten. We can cross a little area to a new island (Mars) though it takes a long time.

Someday we may have good speeds but it won't be until we can make a powerful Propulsion system and mine asteroids. The Power Plant will also be an issue with Nuclear Fusion undoubtedly being the next step for power....

For the first step to becoming an interterrestrial race we need the ability to easily ship materials which we don't have yet... We can hardly get stuff off earth as it is but a Space elevator on the Moon is possible with standard Steel.

Nuclear FUsion will set Man so much farther ahead that I am surprised everyone is not working on it.

Cople of centuries.

At least a few hundred years. Filling the air with greenhouse gases would take a massive amount of time. Not only that but building a planetary environment would be a monumental project taking at least 100 years before there is enough Nitrogen in the air. We would be waiting at least 300 years for the ice caps to melt and fill the oceans. But would the water be fresh water or salt water?

Originally posted by Weak1ings:

Think of Space as the Ocean in 2000 BC... That's as far as we've gotten. We can cross a little area to a new island (Mars) though it takes a long time.

Someday we may have good speeds but it won't be until we can make a powerful Propulsion system and mine asteroids. The Power Plant will also be an issue with Nuclear Fusion undoubtedly being the next step for power....

For the first step to becoming an interterrestrial race we need the ability to easily ship materials which we don't have yet... We can hardly get stuff off earth as it is but a Space elevator on the Moon is possible with standard Steel.

Nuclear FUsion will set Man so much farther ahead that I am surprised everyone is not working on it.

there are nucleare fusion plants being worked on and trying to get working all around the globe in europe their estimated to build a working fusion reactor in 2020

The estimates I've heard for fusion power are around 2050; it always takes longer than they think too :(. From what I've read terraforming Mars will probably takes several centuries if not a 1000 years. It all depends on when we start and what tech we have at our disposal.

For anyone really interested, you should read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy from a few years ago: Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars. It's great, though he got some of the climatology wrong according to Chris Wayans.

My map ignores the tiny little issue (read: huge, life-threatening issue) that Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere, so whenever there was a solar flare everyone (including animals) would have to take shelter or they would be killed. Not to mention we don't know the health effects of living or being born on a planet with only 1/3 Earth's gravity. Details, details...

It would take a few centuries atleast. And after that, the atmosphere would have to have a continous 'supply' of atmosphere, since the planet's gravitational pull and lack of a rotating core would make it drift away into space.

As stated by TofuSojo, it also doesn't have a magnetosphere, and in the event of a solar flare everything alive on the planet (apart from maybe microbacterial life) would be killed without shelter. The flare would also strip away the atmosphere in mere seconds.

It is a huge possibility that Mars once had an atmosphere almost identical to our own, but lost it after a billion years because of it being sucked into space, blasted away by meteorite hits, and bonding with the Martian soil.

So, yeah... Science.

EDIT: Also forgot the mention that its still losing its atmosphere. The MAVEN probe is still studying how fast. The images of the escaping atmosphere and the rest it has submitted are quite amazing.

We could hollow out chambers below the surface, 1/3 gravity would be a good thing as the structural beams and crap we could build could easy support a thick layer of dirt, then we build little sealed bubbles underground and put the rods for our plant on the surface, who cares if we radiate the surface, so no need to terraform, it would be a waste of effort and not doable anyway as no gravity to keep the atmosphere.

@Not Jamie Lol, I was waiting for someone to meantion the leaky atmosphere. From what I've read, if we terraformed Mars to have an Earth-like atmosphere it would take 100,000s if not millions of years for it all to escape into space, so not an issue for terraforming or human colonization. As for your claim that any solar flare would instantly blast away all the atmosphere, I have never heard of such a thing before and find it very doubtful. If it were true, why does Mars have any atmosphere left at all? Perhaps MAVEN and future probes will provide the needed data.