For something that looks almost familiar as a California desert at times, the Martian surface is remarkably inhospitable to Earthling life. The thin atmosphere would suck the water right out of terrestrial organisms. The lack of a magnetic field means anything living there would be bombarded by radiation. Even the hard-packed regolith is full of toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons known as perchlorates. It’s hard to imagine anything surviving there for long.
