Here's how the first humans will live on Mars - and why traveling the 140 million miles to get there will be the easy part

No human has ever set foot on Mars, but that hasn't stopped science fiction writers like Andy Weir, author of the best-selling novel "The Martian," from imagining what it would be like to live on the dusty Red Planet.

In one word: Miserable.

Mars is a lifeless wasteland that would make Siberia feel like an island paradise.

But the frigid temperatures, lack of breathable oxygen, and dangerous radiation levels are only some of the many features that would make life on Mars a veritable, red-stained hell.

Winters would be twice as long and harsher than anything on Earth. And while there is water on Mars, it's all locked in ice. Still think it's worth going to live on Mars?

TED speaker and technologist Stephen Petranek thinks so - enough to write an entire book on "How We'll Live on Mars." And the producers at TED have summed up the main points in Petranek's book in this amazing graphic.

Check it out below, and learn how the first human Martians will live:

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