Terraforming Mars

<p data-rte-fromparser="true">[Excerpt from an article on the colonization of Mars, by Dan Ousley] 
</p><p data-rte-fromparser="true" data-rte-empty-lines-before="1">...but the costs of these Mars installations and their continued maintenance is staggering - and their spartan shells are a far cry from the idyllic colonies pictured by turn of the century inspirational tourism posters. 
</p><p data-rte-fromparser="true" data-rte-empty-lines-before="1">All that might be about to change. In a rare interview, <a data-rte-meta="%7B%22type%22%3A%22internal%22%2C%22text%22%3A%22TranStar%22%2C%22link%22%3A%22TranStar%22%2C%22wasblank%22%3Atrue%2C%22noforce%22%3Atrue%2C%22wikitext%22%3A%22%5B%5BTranStar%5D%5D%22%7D" data-rte-instance="61196-1482445476592ae7cbc5683" href="/wiki/TranStar" title="TranStar">TranStar</a> president <a data-rte-meta="%7B%22type%22%3A%22internal%22%2C%22text%22%3A%22Alex%20Yu%22%2C%22link%22%3A%22Alex%20Yu%22%2C%22wasblank%22%3Atrue%2C%22noforce%22%3Atrue%2C%22wikitext%22%3A%22%5B%5BAlex%20Yu%5D%5D%22%7D" data-rte-instance="61196-1482445476592ae7cbc5683" href="/wiki/Alex_Yu" title="Alex Yu">Alex Yu</a> reveals his vision of a Mars where families in short sleeves can picnic in a grassy field, then pick out the point of light that is Earth after the sun sets. 
</p><p data-rte-fromparser="true" data-rte-empty-lines-before="1">Enabling this vision requires terraforming Mars, the most challenging engineering problem the Human race has ever faced. 
</p><p data-rte-fromparser="true" data-rte-empty-lines-before="1">Yu presents an innocuous gray moss to me. An extremophile organism designed specifically for that purpose. Dubbed <i>Takakia Catherine</i>, the simple looking plant is actually a fantastically efficient organic machine that, given enough centuries, will convert the Martian atmosphere into something that very much resembles our own.
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