ESSAY

To a point, yes. It’s called terraforming, and its been written about extensively for over 50 years. I did an
article on it a few years ago – How Do We Terraform Mars? – Universe Today – but it’s long and
detailed, so here are the bullet points of it. Basically, if you’re going to alter the Martian environment for
the sake of human habitation, you need to do three things.

Warm up the atmosphere

Thicken the atmosphere

Make the atmosphere breathable (i.e. a 70/30 oxygen/nitrogen gas split)

Luckily, all three of these goals are complementary, meaning the more you do to enhance one, the more
you do to enhance the other two. And there are lots of ways of going about this, depending upon how
much you’re willing to spend and what kind of space infrastructure you got at your disposal.

First, as Carl Sagan proposed, you could darken the surface of Mars around the poles so that they would
absorb more solar radiation and melt. These could include dark, powdered minerals (like coal) or dark
plants. Elon Musk has also recommended using nuclear devises to melt the polar ice caps, and others
have suggested hurling meteors at them.

This would cause the ice caps to melt, releasing tons of vaporized water into the air and frozen carbon
dioxide. The release of both would result in a thickening of the atmosphere and causing a Greenhouse
Effect, which would warm the planet and allow more ice and permafrost beneath the surface to melt. In
time, standing waters would form on the surface, covering much of the northern hemisphere.

Another way would be to hurl ammonia ices and frozen methane (which could be harvested from the
outer Solar System) at the Martian surface. The impact would kick up dust and also sublimate the ices
and release them into the atmosphere. Dust would allow for more solar radiation to be absorbed, and
methane and ammonia are both super-greenhouse gases. Again, this would trigger a Greenhouse Effect
and allow for liquid water to once again exist on the surface. And the ammonia could be converted to
nitrogen gas, which would act as a buffer gas before oxygen gas could be produced.

The third step, whichh involves converting the atmosphere would be the longest and trickiest part. The
Martian atmosphere is already mostly CO2, and with all the frozen CO2 released from the polar regions,
you would be able to convert it to oxygen gas and carbon over time. This could be done by slowly
introducing plants and vegetation to the surface, which would take root thanks to the presence of water
and some serious nutrient solutions. Atmospheric processing stations could also be set up to slowly
convert the CO2, or cyanobacteria could do the job (as it did on primordial Earth).
Another major issue is ensuring that the atmosphere is protected from solar wind, which was how Mars
lost its primordial atmosphere billions of years ago. One way to do this would be to try and restart
action in the core, which would be very costly and difficult. Another way would be to position a
magnetic shield in orbit around Mars L1 Lagrange Point, which would shield its atmosphere from solar
wind and also allow it to thicken naturally over time.

There are other means, but the ones listed above cover all the basics. After you’ve done all that, and
allowed for a few centuries or even millennia for the process to take hold, Mars would no longer be the
Red Planet, it would be a second “Blue Marble”. And with people there to ensure that the atmosphere
was monitored and thickened from time to time, it would be able to remain the warmer, wetter
environment that it once was.