Fixed.

I’d hardly say I’m “telling future Mars colonists how to live their lives” by simply pointing out that the transplantation to Mars of Earthside leisure activities will cover a range of difficulty from easy to impossible. Mars colonization will be, especially in the early going, strictly the province of people with hard heads and pragmatic mentalities. Self-selection will see to it that no one who can’t live without their sailcraft or aqualungs is going to be a Mars colonist. Hiking as a leisure activity may eventually come to Mars, but not soon.

I suspect that had the Martian environment been more like the Louisiana Purchase then we would have been more eager to get there. As it is, many people ask why we even think of going there, since nothing is there, not even breathable air.

Fortunately, there are civilians willing to spend private money (their own money) to go where governments are reluctant to go, even though they spend public money (other people’s money).

MatF: You ask a “what-if” question, which are by definition really unanswerable. Personally I do not think a more friendly Martian environment would have made any difference in what happened after the 1960s space race. The U.S. was primed to try out the Soviet model of top-down rule in its space effort, and would have done so regardless. The result would have been the same, decades of wasted government spending accomplishing little.

The Appalachian Trail didn’t become a thing until more than three centuries after the arrival of the first British colonists in Virginia and Massachusetts. I suspect it won’t take anywhere near that long for a comparable trail to be established on Mars, but I’m also sure I won’t live to see it and I suspect my offspring won’t either.

Sarcasm aside, these are exactly the types of problems that we expect Martian citizens to explore and solve.

Dick Eagleson: I guess you’re right. It can’t be done. No point in even trying.

There’s also the little matter of where all the air/breathing mix would come from to keep even a single notional hiker alive as he ambles along. Unless there are shelters with stationary air plants that run on solar or beamed power and make breathable air out of the martian atmosphere situated at fairly short intervals all along the “trail,” a “hiker” would have to carry his breathing mix with him. If Earthside hiking trails needed a comparable level of infrastructure to keep hikers alive, no one would hike.

Carrying breathable “air” in sufficient quantity to cover any appreciable distance might not be possible even using, say, a mastodon-sized version of a Boston Dynamics robot “dog” or “mule.” The necessity of having something that size following one on the “trail” would necessitate said trail being a rather considerable road. Imagine, if you will, widening the Appalachian Trail to allow each hiker to be followed by a Caterpillar D-10 bulldozer – not the sort of experience an Earthside hiker would be looking for.