Could we make Mars habitable?

The answer

Terraforming Mars would require thickening its atmosphere, warming the planet, and creating a breathable atmosphere - a process that might take centuries to millennia. Proposed methods include releasing CO₂ from polar caps and soil using orbital mirrors, crashing ammonia-rich asteroids into the surface, or introducing engineered microorganisms to produce greenhouse gases. However, Mars lacks a global magnetic field, so solar wind would gradually strip away any atmosphere we build. Some scientists have proposed creating an artificial magnetic shield at the Mars-Sun L1 Lagrange point to solve this. The ethical questions are as complex as the engineering.