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Question
How could any one make a self-suistaining way to keep carbon-dioxide and oxygen flowing on the planet Mars so that people could live there?
I believe you are asking how we could terraform Mars. Altering the environment on Mars to allow some genetically engineered plants to live there may be possible someday in the far future, by finding ways to increase the temperature and the availability of liquid water (probably by by adding greenhouse gases to the martian atmosphere). But most scientists who have studied terraforming conclude that we will never be able to make Mars habitable for humans without some sort of spacesuit. Maintaining free oxygen in the martian atmosphere seems to be an especially difficult challenge.
David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
November 17, 2004
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