The earth has 7.5 billion people on it, is 7,926 miles in diameter, and has been around for 4.5 billion years.

Now, we plan on populating the red planet.

In 2030, NASA plans to launch Space-X and put the first humans on Mars.

The world has been speculating over going to Mars ever since 1952, when the first book about visiting this planet was released, written by Whernher Von Braun. Throughout all of these years of speculation, only in 1965 did the US complete the first successful flyby using a satellite that was never touched by humans again.

Throughout all of the flybys done, they have only taken pictures of the planet, but have never actually made physical contact. However, we have put a few “mars rovers” on the planet to take more in-depth pictures and samples of soil. Only one continues to work today, though.

The goal of the Mars mission is to establish a Mars colony of one million people by providing a cheap way to move a large amount a great distance.

NASA has estimated that the project will cost approximately $300 million. I feel we should be spending that money on more important things and things closer to home rather than a completely different planet. For instance, we could use the money to rebuild run-down cities such as Detroit or perhaps even reforest the Earth rather than colonizing Mars.

Over the span of the 200,000 years humans have roamed the Earth, we have depleted our planet’s resources. It is estimated that in 2088, we will completely run out of coal. We are not only running out of resources, but  we are melting glaciers, as well. Perus Quelccaya is just one of the ice caps melting & is estimated to be fully melted by 2100.

For me, colonizing Mars is not a good idea. Sure, it’s cool to go to a different planet, but we need to focus on ours, the one we already have.