No, we won't. Nature will, once we guide it. The hardest part will be restoring the magnetic field and that is far from impossible. Once that happens plants will bring back the air and water is probably there already. It will take centuries but it will be done.
Most people could stay on the surface of Mars for years without having a significant increase in cancer risk.
Just because our roads and bridges don't last as long as those the Romans build doesn't mean they aren't "durable". Roman roads and bridges didn't have to endure 80,000 lb. vehicles every day either.
Living underground on mars wouldn't be much more difficult than living underground on earth. We have plenty of (theoretically) sustainable underground bunkers designed for long term human habitation. They could be built on mars as well. Such a colony would make determining how (or if) surface habitation was eventually sustainable. DARPA has a 'new' (to us) program researching 'tactical tunneling' to develope underground offensive military applications like covert troop and material movements. They have suggested such a program may prove useful in mars colonization as well.
If you're waiting for 'hospitable' scenarios to pave the way, then I suspect Neanderthals would not have migrated, explorers would never have crossed oceans to the US, explorers would never have crossed the US and trekked to the west coast, explorers would never have landed on the Moon, and no sane man would ever marry! Maybe you can suggest a more 'hospitable' world other than Mars in which humans will find 'hospitable' conditions?
warp drive would make getting there a lot easier... https://www.nowscience.co.uk/single...s---Bringing-Us-One-Step-Closer-to-Warp-Drive
Actually building large scale underground habitations on Mars would probably be easier than on Earth due to the relative lack of seismic activity.
There is plenty of room on Mars. Plus, there are rules about "owning" space on other planets, moons, asteroids, etc. How about at least making it a joint effort until someone somewhere comes up with an actual reason for being there?
Europa is massively saturated with lethal levels of radiation. Hundreds of times the levels on Mars IIRC. If you were going to stay on any of the large Galilean moons of Jupiter it would be Calisto which doesn't suffer from the high radiation levels of the other moons.
Isn't Europa a giant ball of water, with a suspected liquid center? Water is a pretty good radiation block. We just have to get a submarine there...
I do not see a rational justification for that. There is no known payoff for having a Mars base. Demanding that we pay the whole freight for an excursion with no known reward hits me as more than just odd. If it is found that having a Mars base is actually worthwhile for some reason, there will be plenty of Mars to choose from. We're not going to run out of Mars surface area. Our space station efforts and our scientific missions have included significant cooperation and joint ownership, which has been correctly viewed as positive.
True. We would also need a way to bore through 10 to 15 miles thick surface ice. Maybe a probe that melts its way down while somehow keeping the cable free.
I really hope we will have moved beyond nations by that time; at least as far as things like this are concerned. That's not Utopian dreaming. Antarctica is pretty much an International Enterprise and we're still sending our astronauts up in rockets launched from Baikonur, Putin or no. "We came in peace for all mankind", remember?
Much of this space adventure already is international (see ISS) but Russia and China do not seem interested in it. They both also delve into the old school us vs. them concept and are thus not trusted enough to share data which is a requirement. Between Russias space shuttle espionage and China trying to steal stealth technology they have clearly shown the way they think, Everyone else seems to work well together.