These Experiments Are Building the Case to Terraform Mars

An artist's conception of what Mars could look like as it gradually becomes more habitable. (Credit: Daein Ballard/Wikimedia Commons) Whether it's extreme climate change, an impending asteroid impact, scientific curiosity or even space tourism, there are compelling reasons to think about calling Mars our second home. But before expanding humanity's cosmic real estate holdings, scientists will need to make the Red Planet feel a little more like our blue marble. That, in a nutshell, is the goal of researchers thinking about ways to terraform another planet. Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, has suggested we nuke the polar ice caps on Mars to unlock liquid water and release clouds of CO2 that would thicken the atmosphere and warm the planet. This notion got some press last year when Major League Baseball player and amateur astrophysicist Jose Canseco tweeted: "By my calculations if we nuked the polar ice caps on ...