![\"New](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/12115057\/SEI_229234579.jpg\")
<\/div>Earth isn\u2019t doing so great. Thanks to human-induced climate change<\/a>, the seas are warming<\/a> and rising, while the land \u2013 in many places \u2013 is alternately choked in drought<\/a> or inundated with floods<\/a>. As for us humans, we are engaged in warfare on multiple continents, far-right movements are ascendant across the world and, as of last month, \u201cdude wipes\u201d are available with a pumpkin spice scent in the United States.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the escape hatch to space is creaking open. Elon Musk\u2019s company SpaceX<\/a> has a growing fleet of cheap, reusable rockets. In October, the booster stage for its mega-rocket, Starship, was caught in the grip of a skyscraper-high tower as it descended back to Earth. It was an impressive feat. But Musk\u2019s goal with these vehicles is even more audacious: to start a self-sustaining million-person city on Mars<\/a> in the next 30 years.<\/p>\n Has anyone really thought this through? Well, yes, as it happens, albeit not Musk. We are a wife-and-husband research team \u2013 a biologist and cartoonist, respectively \u2013 and we have spent four years looking into how humans will become space settlers for our latest book, A City on Mars<\/i><\/a>. We set out to write the essential guide to a glorious off-world future. What we learned, however, made us space settlement sceptics.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing: Mars sucks. When you dig into what life would really look like on the Red Planet, in terms of the squishy details of human existence, it becomes hard to avoid an inconvenient conclusion \u2013 that moving to Mars to escape Earth would be like moving\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n