Mars Base

Someday, I'll retire. Right now, my career is beginning, but it will someday end, as I am not some sort of immortal robot, but a very mortal flesh-and-blood person, who will slowly age and such. Of course, based on the progression of the ever-pushing-back retirement age, this will occur when I am about 130 years old or so.
In all seriousness, I think I'll move to Mars. Where I'll have an entire planet, with only people I deliberately bring with me. And I'll have to use my super science to survive. I'll fly over several cargo-loads of materials and goods, ending with a number of vehicles, and finally myself in a space suit. I'll prop up a shelter-tent that NASA recently designed, and use a scouting vehicle to scout for a good site. I'll be looking for a cliff, kind of like this:

Yes, the sky is blue on Mars. Well, a muddy, icky sort of cyan, but definitely a blue.
I will then use my construction tools to hollow it out, and build an elaborate base, which I have crudely doodled up with a paint program:

This complex would have enough room for not just me, but also a whole host of support staff, any astronauts NASA sends my way, any members of my family that chose to come with me, entire planeloads of random friends, and possibly a few fans that demand to join.
To make up for the low quality of the picture, as I am not an artist, I have produced an annotated version:

1. Airlock, for allowing vehicular exploration. Also how astronauts enter and leave the complex.
2.Vehicle Garage. Also a good spot for storage and perhaps a laundry room.
3. Coal power plant. Burning coal is actively a good idea on Mars, which is deficient in carbon!
4. Factory / fabber. Would start as a large empty room with a fabbing machine, and would ramp up production with new machines as I go.
5. Steel Mill. Steel would be the main economic production here on Mars, I think. Coal fired.
6. IT center. Massive mainframes operating all numerical/logical challenges here.
7. Water tank and pumping room. It keeps the site's supply of clean water, and pumps it to areas needing/requesting it.
8. Gym. I may hate working out, but it's probably a medical necessity so as not to have my bones turns to goo in the lighter gravity.
9. Science lab. Biology, Chemistry, and/or physics.
10. Personal quarters. Many lockable rooms like a hotel, because I plan on there being...guests. Guests who I don't want barging in anytime they feel like it. So I would have a room, and a buddy can have a room, and the astronaut that arrived yesterday can have a room, and we can all have our privacy.
11. Entertainment complex. I think definitely a movie theater, billiards room, swimming pool, and anything else anyone suggests be brought in. I may not want to do those things every day, but since it's on Mars, going back to Earth means a six month journey and a price tag of several billion dollars. So if I don't bring it, I don't have it.
12. Massive greenhouse. This produces all the food the complex uses, and scrubs carbon from the air so that we don't all suffocate.
This would be like a city, on Mars. I would want to be in contact with NASA, for warning in the event of solar flares, and for resupply of coal. In return, astronauts would be welcome to the facility, to use the lab, the sleeping quarters, the entertainment complex, and the factory to supply all their needs, in the name of science.
I could also be persuaded to help travelers establish similar sites across Mars. Mars has a lot of resources, untapped mostly because it's hard to get there, and hard to survive once you do. And anything using Mars's resources is not using Earth's, so we all could only benefit.
Not depicted in the drawing are dehumidifiers, which recycle the clean water supply, and stairwells and hallways that connect the site together. If I've forgotten any rooms, I think I can just dig them out elsewhere. (Maybe under the garage, or deeper into the cliff from one of the hallways?)

Cheapest Terraforming Mars

A youtube video suggests a really, really, cheap way to terraform Mars.

Bacteria. Little bacteria genetically engineered to endure the high radiation, low temperature nightmare that Mars is now, slowly pushing it warmer, wetter, gassier, and more able to help us.
The cost? He estimates it to be about "two shuttle launches," which would add up to $120 million USD at lowest and $2.6 billion USD at highest. Both are astronomical sums, but well within the reach of multiple nations, and even a few corporations.
The bacteria would work slowly, but would operate in conjunction with any other project undertaken. Warming Mars with lasers would speed it up. Adding CO2 would speed it up. Dropping resource-rich meteors would speed it up. A coal-burning remote base would speed it up.
He points out that a common objection to this kind of thing is "but we have problems here on Earth!" Which we do. For $2.6 billion, apartment complexes could be built in such numbers that rent prices would collapse nationwide, ending homelessness for the foreseeable future. Or, a comprehensive medical anti-drug program could end narcotic addiction. Or any number of other worthy projects.
However, another big benefit to this project is that it can be piggybacked on a scientific mission, the kind we were planning to do anyway, for only marginally more money. An extra $500 on a billion dollar project. And that makes it a little harder to argue.

Terraforming Mars Slowly

Long ago, I described a plan for terraforming Mars, a plan that would vastly increase the territory available to Earthly life, including our own. It would be slow and agonizingly expensive, but worth it. Now, here's a second means of doing it, far more slowly, but in more affordable bites.
We start with a robotic probe, steel pieces, a tank of compressed air, and plexiglass. The probe lands, finds the steel, and assembles it into a frame. It then slides the plexiglass between the steel, and seals it airtight. This structure should also have an airlock. On the inside, leave the air tank, preferably opened. When the pressure is earthly pressure, (760 Torr, or one "atmosphere"), then we have something very valuable indeed: a base of operations on Mars that could sustain a small group of people. The first group to use this should be with them a collection of plants, or at least seeds. This will keep the air breathable by humans. They should also attempt to farm to reduce the amount of supplies needed, and dig an underground complex for when radiation levels come high.
One of the missions of human visitors to Mars should be to build additional complexes. This will allow expansion of the number of missions, and will cost less than the original, robotic one. Some of these may even be sold as exotic living space, which I'm sure a few people can not only afford, but want to buy.
When we have a number of these, we can attempt megaprojects to reactivate the Martian core, resupply the Martian atmosphere, and melt the ice on Mars. A few meteor supplements can fill out the Martian sea, and when an atmosphere is established, then plants can be planted outside to make it human breathable. In the end, Mars would be as friendly to Earthly life, humans included, as the Earth itself.
This project would run for millions of years in total, but at no point would more than $1 billion be needed. Mars would slowly gain value as the project progressed, as it gained industry, agriculture, and sustained more and more people. Ownership is an issue, as a treaty in place forbids national ownership of the turf in question. All space powers, including the United States, have signed this treaty.
I think that within the next thousand years, this slow method or the fast method, will become necessary for the sustaining of our collective economic systems, which demand perpetual growth. This requires an ever-growing population, and an ever-growing amount of factories, mines, and so on, and the Earth is only so big. As it grows, we increasingly have to make some hard choices. We can spend trillions growing Mars, or we could sacrifice wild lands, or we could expensively build under the sea. Any of these options have some painful drawbacks, but we must persue one.

Martian SteelWorks

Mars is covered in rust, and would benefit from additional carbon dioxide. Coal, when burned, produces carbon dioxide. Coal + Rust = Steel. Steel could be made into rockets, which we could fly to anywhere in the universe. Plus, the carbon would be gone from the earth, eternally.

Oh wait, the cost of moving the coal. Damn it.

Terraforming Mars

Perhaps you've heard in the news about the US (and perhaps other countries), trying to travel to Mars. One of the goals of the project is to finally either confirm or deny the existance of life on Mars, be it now or thousands of years ago.

Many people are complaining, as this mission is expensive and doesn't produce a material result. (It wouldn't be worth bringing back any materials that didn't have a large scientific interest, and mining is done in tons anyway.) Well, for material results, I've got something for you that I read in a magazine once.

Terraforming is a slow process that would make Mars more Earthlike, until we could build cities and wildlife reserves on it. It'd be like gaining another Eurasia for all of earthly life. (Mars is smaller than earth, and the lowest land on Mars would become flooded by the new ocean.)

The first step would be to crash Mars's two moons into the surface, as the moons aren't as scenic as ours and would be inside the Martian atmosphere by the time we finished, which would crash them anyway. Then have satellites release CFCs from the surface. This would not erode the Ozone layer as it does on earth, because Mars does not have an ozone layer. The thickening of the atmosphere would increase the temperature, which would allow for better options. At this point, we would release large amounts of methane and CO2 into the Martian atmosphere, which is useful to us as both of those are essentially waste in our atmosphere.

By this point, Mars is like the polar regions of earth: cold and miserable, but able to support some life. Lichens would be seeded at strategic points on the Martian surface. Mars has some water to sustain them, but probably not enough for, say, a penguin, or a polar bear. We would want to add more. NASA would find asteroids in the asteroid belt rich in water, and crash them into Mars. As it warms, small lakes would develop. More CO2 and methane would keep it from freezing back over.

In addition to providing oceans and life support, vaporized water is a greenhouse gas, further raising the temperatures. We're at the three quarters completed point, and now some regions of mars resemble Siberia. The wetter areas would support arboreal trees.

We continue to add CO2, but now we're planting more plants. The plants break down the CO2 with the power of the sun. The carbon becomes their food and bodies, the oxygen is released into the atmosphere. The original CFCs have probably decayed or escaped into space, so an ozone layer would form, protecting Martian life from the powerful radiation of the sun. Water would also need to be added. Contaminated earthly water could be used too, if bacteria are added to break down the pollution.

It would also be wise to find a way to reactivate the magnetic core of Mars. Earth's molten core provides a magnetic field that in addition to aiding in navigation through the use of compases, also reflects harmful radiation from space.

At the end of the project, mars has oceans, plants, and the deserts on which plants continue to expand into. We add animals now, including ourselves. Any humans there build cities, and run civilizations, be it as a colony of the sponsoring nation, or independantly. Space travel would connect the two planets economically, and I imagine the Martian population booming from the rich resources and lack of people to compete with the colonists.

All in all, this project would cost trillions of dollars and take over a thousand years to complete, and there is some risk of Mars slowly de-terraforming, returning to the lifeless husk it is today. I am absolutely convinced that it is worth doing