Hello everyone, I am conducting some research and thought I’d put this question here to see what I may be missing.

If we were sending a human mission to Mars, with all supplies included for the initial settlement, what surface hazards would we need to plan for to mitigate harm to the crew while on Mars?

Though it is not likely that there are other humans in our solar system. However it does not have to be Life as we know it. I personally do not think that there are other human life forms within our solar system but I do believe there is possibly Life as we do not know it maybe even on Jupiter.

But I really believe that there is other life forms within the Milky Way galaxy possibly within the next star system. I think one of the Kepler planets could contain human life.

The Milky Way just so vast that it would just be ignorant to think that there's no other life forms out there. I know that God created all things and it's all things were made by him and for him but it's hard for me to believe that a Creator would just stop creating with Earth.

I think there might be all sorts of life forms we just are not aware of because we cannot reach it and do not have the tools to detect it.

Forging a part of my setting where an insectoid species flees their collapsed homeworld and after thousands of years on their colony ship they settled on Mars. Finally feeling like they can develop a population beyond the typical 10,000 their ship would allow they set up a home on the Red Planet.

Now my first idea was to have them dwell in the lava tubes of Olympus Mons, based on what I found online Olympus Mons has enough lava tubes to make a cavern city & through the Pthumerian life support technology, strong bodies, & radiation resistance they can make something of the mountain.

I looked at the largest craters of Mars and while Hellas Basin technically isn't the biggest crater it seems big enough for a domed crater city, made of Andesite & powered through Solar & Thorium.

I think Olympus Mons would still be used like other mountains on Mars like Albia Mons & Elysium Mons after mining it dry. Perhaps for vertical farming facilities & cryo mines to harvest dry ice & water ice, converting water into oxygen/hydrogen have a myriad of uses.

Hi. I'm looking at realizing and prototyping some ideas for Mars habitats which include radiation shielding and wanted to get some ideas. Currently looking at launching starship ready habitats.

Any crazy things I'm missing other than outside pressure, temperatures and radiation?

A friend claims that we should send a rabbit and a rat to mars, not humans, and I can't find very convincing arguments against it, in fact, sending a rabbit to Mars first makes sense.

Can you say the science advantages of sending a human, stating something that lab creatures and robots cannot?