How to live on Mars without even one gasp of breathable air. Here's how

Frida Ghitis: Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does.

She says Mars 's lack of a magnetic field somehow is not an issue, but we will never live on Mars .

The South Pole is around 2,800 meters above sea level, and like everywhere else on Earth around 44 million miles closer to the sun than any point on Mars . It sits deep down inside the nutritious atmosphere of a planet teeming with native life. Compared to the very most hospitable place on Mars it is an unimaginably fertile Eden .

Frida Ghitis : There is no scenario in which humans can try to colonize Mars and survive on Earth long enough to go live in that colony.

She says there is no need to try to come up with some way to build a permanent human settlement on Mars .

Ghitis says the idea of trying to build that colony on Mars is morally reprehensible.

He says Earth is where life could happen; we are here because this is where we could be.

Frida Ghitis: Elon Musk tweeted about his plans for a Mars colony.

She says the lifestyle of McMansion owners in Ashburn , Va. is incompatible with the needs of basically all the other life we've ever detected in the observable universe.

Ghitis says there will not be any human beings around when Sun Get Large even begins to become a problem.