Outside of the realm of science fiction, the notion of colonising Mars has always been considered more than a little impractical due to the huge time scales involved. Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society begs to differ, however, and suggests that it might be possible to terraform Mars to a point where it has a breathable atmosphere within a mere thousand years, as opposed to the tens of thousands usually cited. All that climate science is proving to have some ancillary uses after all!