Readers write: “Mars or bust” comic

Mars and childhood memory

I found that reading “Mars or bust: A comic” in the Oct. 14 Monitor Weekly was far more interesting than reading an article about colonizing the planet for two simple reasons. 

First, it brought me back to my childhood in Colombia. I used to sit down next to my grandpa and my dad in the living room while they were reading the newspaper and look at all the comics that they set aside. Second, the comic is interactive for people who don’t enjoy reading a lot. It’s very short with a lot of content and great ideas on how to approach the Red Planet. I liked the ideas and it was very easy for me to understand.

Thank you so much for sharing this great comic. I actually got interested in reading it properly and understanding it all. 

Daniel Gomez
Elsah, Illinois

Feasibility of terraforming

Looking at the big picture, a large-scale colonization of Mars would obviously be very expensive and time-consuming. And colonizing Mars would not be as good a use of resources as taking steps to have a platform built for space colonization closer to Earth. 

In one terraforming approach that the Monitor reported on in “Mars or bust: A comic,” Mars is bombarded with asteroids containing gases that are close to Earth’s atmosphere. I asked a Northwestern student about this, and he launched with enormous excitement into a conversation on how Mars colonization is one of his career goals.

Chuck Johnson
Wilmette, Illinois