The year 2012 info

[Warfreak]

or at least the catholic church.

Which would be the end of the world to catholics.

[AHadley]

But not for us apathists.

[Mr X]

In order to colonise mars there are a couple of problems we need to solve first. It is very very cold and the air is very thin and of course there is nothing to eat except rocks and dust. The reason manned space exploration is not occurring is because there is nowhere else close by that can support human life, and of course our technology really is not good enough yet. Bush announced it as a plan because he wanted to look cool, but clearly had no idea what he was really talking about.
1.The first thing we need to do is develop a sensible way to get into orbit, rockets work, but they are very expensive, inefficient, polluting and dangerous.
2.Then we need to figure out how to construct a survivable habitat in orbit, human body's simply do not function correctly in 0 gravity.
Once these 2 points have been solved we would be in a position to explore elsewhere, and maybe even survive the experience.
Using our current technology, sending people to Mars would amount to a suicide mission in order to place a flag on some very dull rocks.

One of the oldest political tricks around, is promising something that clearly cannot be delivered (in your term of office). You get to look dead cool for doing it and nobody will blame you when it never actually happens.

Apparently if you released a load of the right pollution onto mars, the greenhouse effect would cause the surface temperature to increase and melt the polar ice caps (Loads of water), the planet would then have water on its surface and so could theoretically start to sustain plants.

[Warfreak]

Mars's caps are a mix of WaterIce and DryIce (Solid CO2). Still a valid idea though.

[mrtwosheds]

Apparently if you released a load of the right pollution onto mars, the greenhouse effect would cause the surface temperature to increase and melt the polar ice caps (Loads of water), the planet would then have water on its surface and so could theoretically start to sustain plants.

It would probably only take a few thousand years. Given our inability to even agree with each other on looking after our own planet in the immediate future, I see no prospect of this being done by humans, ever. No big (imaginary) profit within one small lifetime = no action.
We like to think we are so clever, but really we have not advanced much at all from bashing each other over the head just to steal our next meal.

[Clavin12]

You could melt the ice caps releasing water and co2 which is a greenhouse gas and will warm the planet increasing the speed of the melting process.

[AHadley]

CO2 itself would not do any warming at all, and with mars' atmosphere it may well just drift into space.

[Clavin12]

Gravity?

[VSMIT]

Gravity would hold it partially, but the atmosphere would still be extremely thin.

[Feared_1]

Mars' gravitational field is too small to hold enough air to support life. With a situation like this, it would all slowly seep out into space.

[bigbadbogie]

Life is impossible on Mars. It is just too far away from the sun. Microbes could never form at that temperature.

[Red Devil]

Mars died due to its magnetic field weakening which allowed the atmosphere to drift away.  The reason it weakened was that the liquid inner core slowly cooled and solidified, reducing the electromagnetic flux created by the rotational contact with the solid inner core, as what happens when an iron bar is placed in a coil of wire and electricity is passed through it.

Guess what's happening to our planet...

[Nielk1]

Mars died due to its magnetic field weakening which allowed the atmosphere to drift away.  The reason it weakened was that the liquid inner core slowly cooled and solidified, reducing the electromagnetic flux created by the rotational contact with the solid inner core, as what happens when an iron bar is placed in a coil of wire and electricity is passed through it.

Guess what's happening to our planet...

Are entire solar system's shield is still shrinking.

[hybirdisdf]

Life is impossible on Mars. It is just too far away from the sun. Microbes could never form at that temperature.

There will be begining of life form in distant future maybe like 1 billion years from now.That is because the sun grow bigger and more hotter.Outer planets will experince getting springlike season.

[Warfreak]

um, when that happens it will be too late.