Title: How Will We Colonize Other Planets? | HowStuffWorks
Headings: How Will We Colonize Other Planets?
How Will We Colonize Other Planets?
Lunar Living
Successful Settlement of Mars
Establishing Colonies Beyond Mars
Heading for a Planet in Another Star System
Citation

Content: One approach would involve releasing carbon dioxide trapped within the Martian surface to make the atmosphere thicker, which also would help to trap solar radiation and warm the surface. However, a NASA study published in 2018 concluded that the Martian surface doesn't contain enough CO2 to be put back into the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect, and it wouldn't be possible to extract much of what is there with present technology [source: NASA ]. In the next section, we'll talk about the possibility of colonizing an asteroid or dwarf planet. Advertisement
Establishing Colonies Beyond Mars
Do you think you could live on this rock? Riser/Getty Images
Asteroids — those rocky objects that orbit the sun in a wide band between Mars and Jupiter — could serve as stepping-stones to the outer planets. There are only 100 asteroids larger than 125 miles (200 kilometers) across, but a billion or more may exist, making them one of the solar system's greatest resources [source: Rees ]. But colonizing an asteroid would be even more challenging than building a base on Mars or the moon. Asteroids don't have much gravity, so astronauts would face serious health problems from living in that environment unless they created artificial gravity inside the base, possibly by continually spinning the entire habitat.