Before signing up to go to Mars, consider all the ways to die there - CNET

But forget all those engineering problems for now and let's focus on Lee's list of Mars' good and bad attributes as a potential human settlement. On the good side of the ledger is the presence of water! A key building block to life is already there -- it's frozen at the poles and has been seen running just below the surface in salty brine form in warmer regions.

Actually, that's about it for the good news, though. Prepare your sad-face emojis, because the bad side of the list is five times longer.

Let's start with all the "zapping radiation," as Lee calls it, coming from solar and cosmic rays. Most of the Martian atmosphere was lost to space eons ago, leaving little protection against the intense amount of radiation coming from space and the sun.

According to another New Worlds conference talk, by former NASA MD and long-distance biomedical expert Jim Logan, for astronauts on Mars to be shielded from all that radiation, they would need to live underground, putting almost 9 feet of Martian soil between themselves and the elements. (It could help to be from a certain city in Iran, as well.)

Stylish NASA posters imagine the future of...

1 - 5 of 11

Next Prev

"There's just too much radiation to be hanging out on Mars in spacesuits or rovers," Logan said.

Adding insult to injury, what little atmosphere Mars does have is basically toxic to humans because of its high carbon dioxide content. This is not an insurmountable obstacle, of course -- plants would be happy to suck up that CO2 and convert it to oxygen, among other possible solutions. Still, it does greatly add the constant threat of suffocation to astronauts' list of things to worry about.

Speaking of breathing, choking on Martian dust could be another dreadful reality of life on Mars. "It is unknown how the fine Mars dust might affect humans, should they be exposed to it," reads the Mars One website.

To be more specific, according to NASA, it's more the dust than the dust storms that would be the real threat to a settlement, contrary to what you may have seen or read in "The Martian." Martian storm winds top out at 60 miles per hour, not enough to cause much damage, but the dust is much finer than what we have on Earth, surely making it the bane of existence for any moving parts, solar panels and lungs unfortunate enough to be exposed to the stuff.

And should the heating break down on Mars, you could be in a lot of trouble, with temperatures that swing between about 80 degrees F (27 C) to -225 degrees F (-143 C), it's not exactly the place to be caught out in the cold.

Finally, there's the fact that the atmospheric pressure on Mars is extremely low. So low that if you were to walk around without a pressurized suit or rover on the surface, all the water in your body would begin to evaporate. This wouldn't kill you right away, but it would probably make your demise from suffocation even more horrible.