Colonization of Mars

[NMaude]

There's a lot of comets out in the Oort cloud.

The Kuiper belt is far closer than the Oort Cloud.

 

[Josh_TN]

The Kuiper belt is far closer than the Oort Cloud.

In the sense of Alpha Proxima being closer than alpha Centauri, sure.

 

[BlueAbyssal]

This isn't "overrated." On Mars the thin atmosphere offers nearly zero protection from solar radiation. You get fried by radioactive particles in nothing flat. Without a magnetosphere, the atmosphere can't easily thicken, which it would with one to the tune of being about equal to Earth's at roughly 15,000 feet, 5000 meters, in about a decade. That's a huge change. It eliminates alpha radiation entirely. It reduces bombardment by ionized atoms of various sorts. It especially takes care of free protons and neutrons that will kill you dead in nothing flat.

If you have amateurs designing your colony you’ll be fried rapidly, I agree. But it’s well within the state of the art to design habitation that fully protects colonists from radiation without a magnetosphere. Colonists can thicken the atmosphere and keep it replenished without a magnetosphere as well. That doesn’t mean a magnetosphere won’t be desirable or useful, but it can be a side project.