After reading the story The Martian by Andy Weir, I believe that humans should not colonize Mars for many reasons. First, I do not think we should leave this beautiful planet. Though the population is growing rapidly, there is still lots of land available that is uninhabited. Also, I am certain that the cost of traveling to Mars is way too expensive for the average human being on our planet.
The Earth still has lots of vacant acres that can be developed. According to National Geographic, only “83% of our Earth is inhabited.” Over 17% of the land is vacant and still available to be used. For the next several hundred years, humans can continue to grow their cities and communities all over the world. We are not running out of space any time soon. We do not need to start a new civilization on another planet that is 49,000,000 miles away.
Traveling to Mars is extremely expensive. The cost for one person just to visit the planet is close to $200,000. That price does not include that training and preparations that are needed before that adventure begins.“There aren’t many people who can say they’ve vandalized a three billion dollar spacecraft, but I’m one of them.” -Mark Watney, (pg.334) SOL 526. This is an incredible amount of money and not many people in the world can afford to make this
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“I'm convinced that sending people to Mars is so expensive that if you go once and bring the people back and then go again and bring the people back, we're eventually going to run out of money. But what if we send people the first time and they don't come back? What if they stay there?” -Buzz Aldrin “All the Ares missions use Hermes to get to and from Mars. It is really big and costs a lot so NASA only built one. Once, we got to Hermes, four additional unmanned missions brought us fuel and supplies while we prepared for our trip. “-Mark Watney (pg.2) SOL