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Could Mars Be Habitable In 100 Years?
ChazeFroy writes: "About 150 physicists gathered to discuss how Mars could become habitable. They suggested that by introducing PFCs (a cousin of CFCs) into the Martian atmosphere, they could transform the climate of Mars into something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae). This process would take only 100 years, but they estimate it would take nearly 100,000 years for the oxygen levels to increase to a suitable level to sustain human life." Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars."
I also found this and this/a&g t;. Apperently Venus is losing some of its atmosphere into space because of the solar wind. (Venus doesnt have much of a magnetic field either)
Frankly, I'm a bit put off by your focus on sexual intercourse, since I'll be the first to say sexuality can occur between men and between women without requiring one of each. But with that said, what I am talking about is the necessity of a feminine influence on Nasa's mission in this regard. So many of Nasa's problems with crashing probes and blowing up space shuttles would never have happened if it hadn't been for the influence of testosterone. Women would've handled it differently -- you can be sure of that.
-- Anne Marie
I think by climate, they are referring primarily to temperature and weather condition. The reason this would only be enough to sustain lichens and algae is because of the insufficient oxygen level, which is discussed later.
/. and the editors here.
I think you came down a little hard on
--
Ian Peters
>-40 in what? Farenheit or Celsius? Makes a big difference, you know... =-p
:-)
Actually, no, there is no difference at all. Wrong temperature to pick an SI/imperial fight on.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Better you than us :)
Seriously she gets like _NO_ radio play where I liveGod save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Due to some kind of Evil Canadian Conspiracy, both of the programmers at the company where I work (in Seattle) are from Nova Scotia. And they both say 'aboot' with alarming frequency. OTOH they don't say 'eh' and AFAIK neither likes hockey very much.
;)
To even things up a bit though, I'm from the South, and although I don't have an accent (blame TV and radio for the death of interesting American accents) I do use 'y'all' a lot, and am unashamed of it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
-------
-------
"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
we are crumpling styrafome on an industrial scale to increase global warming
Wrong global disaster. CFC's cause the depletion of the Ozone, which is almost entirely unrelated to global warming, which is caused by (mainly) CO2 emissions, which cause the greenhouse effect.
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
I also found this and this. Apperently Venus is losing some of its atmosphere into space because of the solar wind. (Venus doesnt have much of a magnetic field either).
This is a repost, the first was stuffed up for some reason.
Just send a bunch of people up (mixed couples) and let them have kids...the kids that live, will be adapted to the environment and will propagate. Soon we'll have 8' tall space kiddies hackin our linix boxes from orbit......then, they will be the enemy, until then they are are our friends unless they live on europa!
no sig.
Sputtering? that sounds like a personal problem.
I was planning on moving to the US but I'll reconsider. It seems like an even better place (just like home but with no federal government, perfect).
And now if you don't mind I need to buy some spare wagon wheels, oxen, and ammuntion if I'm gonna make it to Mars. (hope I don't lose anything whilst fording rivers)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I'd like to believe that within 100,000 years humans would be exploring the deepest reaches of our solar system, if not our neighboring stars. We will have inevitable learned to survive on Mars, despite the lack of oxygen and abundance of Canadian weather. Rushing to heat up a planet so we can water our gardens on Mars without breathing aids in 100,000 years from now might sound a bit silly. Will terraforming a planet still be a human priority? Maybe. We gotta live somewhere. (Or do we?) We should at least check the place out ourselves before we move in and start rearranging everything. Our feable 20th Century brains shouldn't be planning that far ahead.
Besides, if it's atmosphere your looking for, we've got lots of it in our drinking establishments here in Canada, eh!
Despite the rising cost of living, it remains a popular activity.
Depends what kinds of wavelengths you are talking about. There is no ionizing radiation coming out of the cell tower, but there is some coming from the Sun. That's the one that is dangerous (causes cancer). Anything UV or higher frequencies in general is bad.
He had them setting up windmills to power electric heaters to warm up the planet. Of course, the energy of wind ultimately turns into heat anyway.
He also had them covering the floor with computer printouts - he didn't say what they used for paper.
Ya, I know, that's why I put the 'tongue sticking out smiley face'... "=-p"
There's gotta be a better emoticon for "look I'm making a joke"...
I'm not too sure that I would want an Atmosphere like Canada's.... The air in Toronto is brown.
Still... Wouldn't mind that beer. For you Americans, the missing ingredient is ALCOHOL. I've been told by Americans that it is rare to find a beer over 3.2% alc/vol in the USA. Here in Canada, that's still a Light beer.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
True, but apparently the story is a little more complex than that. Russian cosmonauts on Mir were supposed to do intensive exercise regimes to preserve muscle tone, but these exercise regimes failed to work. What instead happened was that the cosmonauts weren' actually *doing* their exercise routines - Shannen Lucid, the American astronaut who was up on Mir for ages, actually bothered to do her routines and was able to walk around virtually immediately after returning to Earth.
It's equally possible that human lifespan will be substantially *lengthened*. Until we actually go and live there for a while, we won't know.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Fortune sez: "Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *is* fun trying."
[gulp.... refreshing AHHHHHHHH] I think I just lowered Hudson's bay by an inch...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I'm with you on the lovely Texas climate. We've got it great down here. I'll take a summer hotter than the fires of Hell as long as I know that by February winter is over and we'll break 80 again.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
thats not funny, eh?
Dont worry in a thousand years when we discover the young of another species is tasty and we cancel there favorite earth tv show theyl'l eat us all alive to punish us for our deeds to the universe.
will EARTH be habitable in 100 Years? after seeing the ozone layer hole, cancer, and all those weird sicknesses and virus appearing everyday... I dont think earth will be habitable in 100 years
What if the whole Martian surface gets covered with Mir moss? then we're screwed if earth gets it. The "backup planet" gets it too!
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
Say the scientists decide that this is a bad idea and don't go through with it.
Then say Joe Tinker throws together something with duct tape and old intertubes in his backyard that can launch canisters of these PFC's to mars and he does it. Since Mars isn't governed by anyone, can they stop him (aside from FAA launch regulations and other such things)?
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hey, That would be just like the U.S.'s climate :-)
OK, the alternative to this would be to limit and stop some the # of children born, totaly upend some industries like the auto and computer industry, and spend a boatload of money/rescources trying to repair what is already broke.
and the reality is... instead of *gasp* changing, we just keep going until our civilization collapses, we render the planet uninhabitable, or end up nuking each other into nothing.
Forget it. Mars is *way* warmer than Canada in the winter.
XML causes global warming.
"Give a hoot, please pollute"
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Have you wacky yanks been watching CPAN again? ;)
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Oh, come ON people. It's EXTEREMELY unlikely there's life on mars right now. If we find it, we'll find it long before or maybe even BECAUSE of these efforts making exploration of mars _possible_. You're smoking moon rocks if you think that a couple robot probes that can MAYBE test a few dozen or hundred individual samples will be able to make ANY conclusive decision. You'd need a research base there and a LOT of money and effort to determine if life is there, but the MUCH more interesting question in my mind is WAS there ever life there, WAS it ever intelligent, and DID it fertilize a once inhospitable earth?
Rant mode on; Donning flame retardant jacket:
That said; Jesus H. Christ, what do you think terraforming mars is about? Worrying about stepping on some freaking bacteria? You kill bazillions of life forms when you step in the shower, or sneeze on a wall. Terraforming mars is about making it hosipitable for the Human Race to move someplace else and make another home; To help guarantee we won't be extincted in case something happens to earth - Have people forgotten - especially you americans - that your own citizens, under the employ of the US Department of Defense, EVERY DAY, practice the procedures that are in place for the exinction of ALL life on this planet? And that their counterparts in Russia and China do the SAME THING? And you can tell me with a straight face you're worried about fucking up a dead planet, because you MIGHT step on something? Oh my _GOD_.
Are you going to cry when we set up a moon base, too? We're ruining a static environment! There might be moon creater fuzzy creatures!
If we're going to survive, we need to realize a concequence of their being 6 BILLION people on this planet is that people are EXTRAORDINARILY good at F*CKING SHIT UP. Unless you're going to exterminate a LOT of people REAL fast, we're INEVITABLY going to COMPLETELY ruin earth if we haven't already and their isn't JACK that ANYONE can do about it. Are you going to give up driving? Electricity? Are you not going to have any children? Are you going to stop eating anything but gruel until you die? HELL no. Neither is ANYONE else, and the 5.5 billion people on the planet that DON'T live a privilged existance like us in the west are SURE AS HELL going to go throught THEIR industrial revolutions. Then comes THEIR contribution to global warming. Not so fun when you're the one that's going to be sucking in CO2 from China, eh?
It's time we wake up and realize what human civilization means; We need to wake up and accept that there's little we can do about environmental impacts; We can slow the damage, but it's not going to be stopped anytime soon; And that YES, MAYBE, it's a damn good idea to start looking for a new place to live and expand to, and that YES, OF COURSE, we're going to COMPLETELY ruin whereever we move, and that's a natural course of human development, unless of course you're a hypocrite who doesn't think that the 90% of the earth's population has the same right to drive a SUV or Sports Car that YOU and I do.
Give me a break. I want my offspring and their offspring to a) have freedom of choice and b) have some quality of life. That means we're going to need to start looking for more resources. And I didn't even TALK about the extreme likelyhood that man himself will obliterate earth - remember, you practice it every day, and the United States of America and Russia both have enough nuclear weapons to exterminate ALL life on earth. My own country, Canada, is a leading researcher into Biological and Chemical weapons research, as is the USA - and these things are the nastiest inventions that you will ever hear about. Go read what a dose of a modern nerve gas agent will do to a child. Hitler invented that technology with Vx gas. We perfected it.
Damn, that felt good. I needed to vent after watching the puppets dance on that debate. They never talked about any of that; Or the billions and billions they spend on the War on Drugs. Why not build universities instead of prisions, shmucks. Do you know what percentage of the prision population has a college degree? Hint: Your initial hunch is right.
Kudos!
..don't panic
What are the possible mishaps that could result from this type of mission? I'm not an expert on anything relating to this type of thing, but it's something that makes me nervous. Also, if the atmosphere wouldn't become oxygenated enough for 1e5 years, is it really that big of a deal? What we need is definately something more short-term than that.
Well, I live in Canada. (Winnipeg, MB to be exact.) And, let me tell you, if they are talking about the -WINTER- atmosphere, then, quite frankly, I'd pick a polluted ol' planet any day.
I woke up this morning, and, while I was waiting for the bus, I could see my breath. Now, for all you Americans, that means it's pretty dam cold. And it only gets worse. (Last year, the mercury dipped to -34c, which is.. uh.. almost 0f.)
On the other hand, Canadian beer rules.. now where did I put my hockey stick and parka? Oh, here they are, in my Igloo. =)
------------
CitizenC
Pete
on the other hand.. it's probably easier to stand up again when you fall down in a drunken stupor..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Hey!
:)
:) I've been there several times and have *nothing*
*gasp*
My Dad's Texan!...from Victoria.
Um...of course, he *did* leave.
(Disclaimer: I probably don't agree with the
politics in Texas but then I don't agree with
most of the politics here in Canada either.
to complain about the place.)
Just place an order with Weyland-Yutani to place a couple of Atmosphere Processors. Those things scrape the atmosphere in a couple of years.
We call 'm "shake'n bake" planets.
Dave
Well, Alanis Morissette IS God!* She could terraform the planet in the wave of a hand...
*What do you mean, you've never seen Dogma?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Where do you think those fizzy bubbles come from? That's CO2 from the martian atmosphere!
BTW, while you yanks were aiming for the moon, we canucks were already setting up shop on mars, or yellowknife or something.
-
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
Pinky: What'll we do tonight Brain?
The Brain: Same thing we do every night Pinky, try to take over Chia Earth!
Yes...there was an actual episode of Pinky and The Brain where they made a chia earth...this just reminded me of that. Also, please don't ask why a 23 year old watches Pinky and The Brain.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Same as any other colonization effort in history. Damn it must've been boring living a few centuries ago....
At least they'd have a lot of modern conveniences. Which would be necessities in that environment.
We are not above it, either. If we screw up Mars we screw up our own future.
If we're going to do it (and I think we should, someday) we need to get it right, or at least be able to weigh the risks. Right now we don't even know for certain what effect our civilization has had on Earth's atmosphere. And we know a hell of a lot less about Mars than we know about Earth. If we did do something to the atmosphere of Mars it is unlikely that we'd be able to figure out what the effect was.
So no, we don't have the right to mess with the martian atmosphere. Rights come with responsibilities, and if we can't accept those responsibilities we don't have the right.
You've got a 50-50 chance, and I just told you which one wasn't correct.
-- Anne Marie
Some dude who posted earlier had it right:
1) It would need a magnetic field, or an molten-iron core like the Earth so that the surface wouldn't be bombarded by cosmic radiation. Life couldn't exist without this.
2) Mars' mass is way too small to support an atmosphere. You could create oxygen but it would simply float off the surface of Mars... I suppose that's why the scientists suggested using PFCs, because of their higher mass, they probably couldn't escape the gravitational pull, but that's not the same case for oxygen or nitrogen.
Second, this is an old idea. As others have pointed out, it was used to great effect in Kim Stanley Robinson's phenomenal Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy (great science fiction not only because of the science but because of the social, political, interpersonal, and cultural questions it raises).
Third, I find it unconscionable that the scientists (or the writer) didn't consider the possibility that life already exists, or did once exist, on Mars. That final quote -- "we have the chance to spread life beyond its origin" -- is arrogant beyond belief. I suspect that in another century or two (and sooner if we're lucky) the assumption that Earth must be the single "origin" of life will appear as misguided as the belief that Earth was the center of the universe. Yet another example of us stupid humans assuming that the universe exists for our benefit.
This is not to say I'm opposed to extraplanetary colonization or terraforming -- in fact, I think it's critical that, as a species, we ultimately extend ourselves beyond our tiny blue planet. But it would be unconscionable for us to even consider intentionally messing with the climate on Mars until we've determined conclusively that there is no indigineous life. That's not just an ecological argument, it's a scientific one -- if indeed there is life (or evidence of past life) on Mars, the research value would be incalculable. Just think what we could learn about genetics, biology, and evolution if we had access to life that evolved entirely independent of that on our planet. (Or perhaps it didn't evolve independently, giving weight to "panspermia" theories that life can actually be propagated between individual planets and whatnot.)
Considering how long it took us to realize that life survives in some pretty surprising niches on earth -- miles down on the ocean floor, deep inside solid rock, at all kinds of temperature ranges -- I suspect it'll be a long time before we can conclusively declare Mars sterile and even contemplate manipulating the environment. (And that's without even worrying about nonliving attributes of the environment worthy of research, such as geological features.)
Of course, there is some interesting potential here as well. If we do someday terraform Mars, by the time the environment is suitable for higher life we'll probably be pretty good at cloning extinct species and fun stuff like that, so we could turn it into a big nature preserve, Jurassic Park-style. Wouldn't a Canada-like environment be just perfect for those baby woolly mammoth?
Also, this leads me to wonder if we could develop some anti-greenhouse gases that we could use to cool Venus down to habitable levels. If we figured that out, we might also be able to keep ourselves out of trouble if global warming turns out to be the destructive force some have predicted.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
This looks like a case where the fastest way to make Mars' atmosphere breathable to humans is to wait until our technological knowledge increases. If I remember correctly, the quickest way to crack RSA encryption (40 bits?) was to wait 10 years for a better algorithm.
Wouldn't those PFC's do use damage to mars ozonlayer. Mark
Mark
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Actually, I'm American and I have watched Canadian Bacon - probably one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. However, The part where John Candy looks across the river at Canada and sees a beautiful landscape is kind of humorous. The part when he gets back on his boat and crosses back over to the US and sees nasty smog producing factories is even more humorous. I saw this movie about a month before I went from Texas to Detroit, Michigan to visit a friend. When we were on the bridge, crossing the river that separates the two countries, I finally realized that the Canadian Bacon movie was no joke. On the Canadian side, I saw a beautiful boardwark alongside the river, nice landscaped flowers and trees, and people strolling. Looking back at the American side, I saw smokestacks, factories, nasty railyards and general ugliness. Mind you, I have been to Montreal and Vancouver before so this was really no surprise to me. However, seeing the stark contrast on the two sides of the river was a surprise. It was at that point I convinced myself that I was a Canadian trapped in an American body! Well, maybe, but, I have really enjoyed every trip I have taken to Canada. The country is beautiful, the people friendly, and damn that maple syrup sure tastes great. It sure beats the corn syrup imitation crap we have here. At any rate, I will definately be going back to Canada for another visit someday. I can definately see why Canada has been voted the best country in the world to live by the UN. Oh, and another thing, If you see some fat guy coming across the river in a motorboat, it's not me!
Setting aside the scientific value of Mars unaltered for a moment, why exactly shouldn't we do this?
Guess what! Humans are a part of nature. We are not below it, despite what the religious fundamnentalists of the aesthetic-environmental movement/religion would have you believe. Mars posesses no right to not be modified by humans any more than it has a right to not be modified by asteroid strikes.
Steven E. Ehrbar
I'll bite. Which parts?
I grew up in northern Manitoba and now live in Ontario. My wife has much Quebecer family. My parents now live on the west coast, and I've got several maritimer friends (what Canadian doesn't?). I've never heard someone say aboot.
--
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
I see how it would happen. The point is, it isn't happening on Mars to any great degree. Solar wind isn't terribly dense.
And no, magnetic fields aren't shields. But the point holds, particularly if the poles don't face upward. And of course the fields would interact, but how much damage would that do? Further, solar wind is fairly weak, we're not talking solar flares here. Earth's magnetosphere is pretty weak (.1 kilogauss, IIRC...) This type of short-range shielding with magnetic fields, possibly inflated with cold plasma, is not outside our technology.
I will not, however, deny that it is power-exigent.
If violence isn't solving your problems, you're not using enough of it. - MAJ Misato Katsuragi
I hope this is a joke, and I hope i'm not the only one who gets it =)
Well, unless you count the bit that they covered with red paint to look like the Arizona desert when they filmed the X-files season 2 finale, of course. :)
So mars is now free as in beer. What a crock of shit. We should simply GPL mars.
my other penis is a vagina
If there's money in it, without a doubt. And there's every possibility there will be money in it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The question I have is this.... Are they proposing that it would take 100 years to allow the temperature to rise enough for lichen to live on Mars, then 100,000 years for those lichen to create enough Oxygen for humans to live on?
:).
Why not continue the influx of PFCs for another century, which would probably raise the temperature again by quite a bit so that more substantial plants, even so far as temporate or fairly tropical level forests could be raised. That would surely cause much more oxygen to be created then via millions of small lichen.
Besides, if they heated again for another century or two, we would be able to walk around Mars without a jacket on while we breath the fresh air
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
I am no expert on planetary biology or atmospheric science (is there such a field?), but it seems like there is a chance that we might make Mars more hostile to human life if we aren't careful. If we screw up Mars, where else are we going to go?
Magnetic fields aren't nearly as important as a strong gravitational field. Small planets close to the sun (thus having a hot atmosphere) lose light molecules because their velocity exceeds the escape velocity of the planet. IIRC mars can just keep carbondioxide and oxygen, but not water, methane and lighter gases, but even CO2 and oxygen leak away slowly.
If you ever want to live on mars, a magnetic field may be convenient to keep fast charged particles from reaching the surface. They're great for causing mutations and other nasty things.
- Kite
`But gravity always wins.'
- Radiohead
canada kicks ass. esp west coast. don't knock it city boy.
I'm sure it has been said already, but here in Canada we have a pretty big range of climate. What part of Canada? I assure you we have more than algae here.
We have coastal, mountain, arctic and plains climates. Probably more.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
The key to surviving canadian winters is to eat a lot of donuts in the summer. This technique is similar to what bears do.
The reason that Canadians sound like tv news anchors is because tv news anchors are a) canadian, or b) trying to sound canadian to avoid displaying a regional american accent.
Intolerant people should be shot.
this makes me want to go read heinlein's (sp) book again... Its too bad we won't find willis' on mars... I have always wanted a sentient basketball ;)
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
What, exactly, is it you think there is on Mars to screw up? The thinly-disguised religion of nature called aesthetic environmentalism strikes again.
Look, we are part of Nature. What we do is inherently natural. Nature changes things all the time. It is prudent to avoid actions that risk our existence, and it is nice to preserve as much biological diversity as possible. But there is nothing wrong with changing an environment per se, whether Earth's or Mars's or Pluto's or any other.
Steven E. Ehrbar
On the other hand, at least there isn't a single NT installation on Mars. Yet.
-- Anne Marie
Theres always some sad pathetic individual who has to bang his poltically correct drum no matter what the topic and chant his racism/sexism/[some-other-lame]ism mantra. Go get a life you moron.
Sorry to feed your Troll buddy, but I have to agree with this individual. I have big problems with people being sexistic agains Martian women. On the other hand, I have no problems whatsoever with having sex with 8 feet tall Martian women.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Maybe it's just what future generations need. A completely galvanizing, international effort to begin to explore and colonize Mars. Not for the sake of money, but for the sake of humanity. When was the last time humanity felt a unified interest in a human endeavour that surpassed all ideas of nationalism? Probably when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
And ultimately, Mars represents a chance not to mess up another planet, but perhaps in a bout of completely head up my ass hopeful idealism to get it right. A chance to start all over again, and this time, with such a precarious and concerted effort to terraform the planet, maybe we'll even begin to understand how precious, rare, and difficult sustainable environments are.
Someday that lovely Sol is gonna go. Mars is the first and perhaps one of the most essential steps to readying mankind to continue. And I, for one, think we ought to. So hands up who thinks our new information driven economy is a more lofty goal than mankind exploring alien worlds and bringing life to where it is not.
I, for one, long for the day when news is reporting about humans walking on the surface of Mars as opposed to blather about Metallica and MP3s. Don't the rest of you?
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
Most of the things I do in my life are because I can, not because they're useful or good for me.
This story appears to be offensive to canadians:
...something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae).
This appears to imply that Canada can only sustain lichens and algae.
I must say, I've never been to Canada, but I would imagine that all Canadians can't be covered in the above description, as you imply.
Has anyone been there? Is this really what it's like?
PS, IANAL = I am not a lichen.
--
--
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... Oh, no. It's just an eyelash.
Wouldn't it be easier to send out a couple of big Ion drives and strap them to either Phobos or Deimos? Deorbit the moons and plow a huge hole in the side of Mars - letting out heat, gas, and whole buncha stuff ... it's take absolutely years for the ion drives to have any effect but so what... 20 years is nothing in the long term...
Richard
Not enough women. Seriously. How are you supposed to attract mobs of astronauts and colonists to a land barren both of air/water and of the fairer sex? Nasa has been making great strides in piloting women in space of late, but we all agree they haven't gone far enough. Women make up a full 52% of the population on earth and yet only comprise 38% of astronauts? And why is this? We all know that women make for better cooperators and nurturers, and what could terraforming be but nurturing? Any Mars exploration/development and I mean any will have to address these issues if it will ever succeed.
-- Anne Marie
Nasa, Nasa, terra-formers: mars had air but couldn't keep 'er; So we put it in an air-tight dome, and in there we kept the air. Sorry I just happened to give your sentence a bit too much cadence, and weird connections happened...
Intolerant people should be shot.
I'd hardly call the moldy Mir free of pests. WWII Japanese submarines, infamous for rats and roaches, are another artificial environment that could change your perceptions of such things. Yummmy, a fart in a space suit. Hell, there are some buildings I don't like being in and fresh air is right outside.
There are a few other nice things about a planet with a large, regenerating atmosphere. Gravity can be your friend in lots of ways, and it never breaks. Some mirco meteor is not going to ruin your day with body piercing and sucking out that atmosphere. Nor will solar storms send you running for cover.
Continuous sunlight is not what enables alternate day lengths. Sure, it's nice to see the sun durring the "day", but alternate day times were pionereed here on earth by tunring out the lights on submarines.
Colonizing free space and exploiting resources there is very important, but let's not try to glamorize it too much or let it get in the way of spreading to other planets. Ateroid smelting is going to be about as much fun but more seperated from the rest of humanity as oil drilling is today. The goal of points beyond will have to be the surface of other planets. The long time it will take to make it happen should not delay the start.
Bravo to the people considering this seriously!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
(On-topic: Among some of my associates, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books are known as "Marx Goes to Mars". Spread the meme.)
I've had many debates with friends on the origins of aboot, we've perty much always concluded that it's holywood.
Besides, americans think Canada is full of "lichens and algae", considering how little they know of Canada, how would they know about "aboot" (assuming it did exist)
Everybody knows that Mars Needs Women!
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
The bush 3 hours west of Prince George, B.C., for
:)
the most part. Some folk there speak with quite
little accent--with others, (including myself as I
was growing up), it's pretty strong.
I will admit that most of Canada sounds like they
take speach coaching from prime-time NBC, though.
But it's true: I didn't realize my own accent
until I spent a year in the states and Europe--
and people (even non-North Americans) commented
on it; I'd never even *heard* that Canadians were
supposed to talk that way before then.
Over the next 8 or so years, it sort of became
a running joke between my ex-wife and I; she
was Finnish and we lived in Finland, and every time I would come back from a trip to Canada,
my Canadian accent would be back in full force.
While in Finland, I sort of gravitated toward
a weird British/American mix, since the only
English I heard was on TV or from people who
had been taught British English.
Actually, you don't get turtled, you get jerseyed. When you turtle (you have to do it yourself), you basically curl up in a ball, allowing the punches to rain down upon your back. When you get jerseyed (someone does it to you, like in the commercial), your jersey (or your business jacket) gets pulled over your head, so you get forced into having punches rain down upon your back.
There's a difference.
Actually, you don't get turtled, you get jerseyed. When you turtle (you have to do it yourself), you basically curl up in a ball, allowing the punches to rain down upon your back. When you get jerseyed (someone does it to you, like in the commercial), your jersey (or your business jacket) gets pulled over your head, so you get forced into having punches rain down upon your back.
There's a difference.
(woo! massive duplicate posting!)
I beg to differ....
I found that it was too scientific, and that when Robinson didn't know what he was talking about, the BS that he spewed didn't sit well with my knowledge of physics/biology/chemistry.
Oh yeah, and I found the idea of an immortality vaccine to not be very believable either....
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
So what you're saying is that the reason nobody's volunteering to go to Mars is that none of the men are willing to go for a year or more without getting Laid?
.................
Makes sense.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I like it -- comparing humans to an asteroid strike. They seem to be having about the same impact on the environment. It took an asteroid to wipe out the dinosaurs. To wipe out the mammals, however, it will require -- a mammal! (For the humour-impaired, let it be known that I LIKE the idea of terraforming Mars. I just thought Steven's comparison was humorous.) p.s. - It's short-sleeve shirt weather here in Saskatchewan, in mid-October. Global Warming is real!
Believe it or not.
No no no, a whole planet devoted to hockey! (joy!)
Does being part of nature mean screwing it up to you? I'd like to believe that, since we are the most intelligent and evolved being on earth (at least, that's what they say ;] ), we can find other ways to live and act than to destroy nature. We don't need to act like animals anymore.
I think you mean the Arctic. Not all of Canada is snow. Vancouver routinely enjoys better weather than Seattle which is south of it.
Won't the Bene Gesserit or the Bene Tleilax get upset that we're ruining THEIR plans for this planet?
-Chris
{insert something about poor /. quality/hot grits/goatse.cx here}
The climiate mentioned is very different from the Canada than what I'm used to. And to think I thought Canada had rolling hills and farmland--Ontario does anyway. But what do I know, I'm just an ignorant American.
Umm parts of Canada are farther south than Detroit (.01%). So are we talking this part of Canada or are we talking the part above the arctic circle. Just commenting on the /. story blurb.....
Oh come on, Canada's not that bad ;-)
"Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Science fiction, yes, but very scientific in how the author describes the terraforming of Mars. A good read.
Actually, you are right... I need to get out of TX!!!!!
Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars.
At the rate we are going Canada will probably be more like Venus.
Before we can start Mars on the same road.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I do know the magnetic field is not strong enough to provide the protection that we are used to having here on earth.
The rover that landed a few years back was tested for exposure to radiation that would be similiar to that of Mars.
The electronics involved were designed to reboot every so often. This was due to solar radiation effecting the way it preformed.
I would guess that would be too much for us as well.
Some people have talked about putting dust in the amosphere to help shield Mars.
Some people at NASA from a generation raised on planetary sci-fi just doesn't get it. Colonizing the surface of the Moon would create a habitable area equal to Africa. Colonizing Mars would produce a habitable area with a surface area equal to Earth's land masses (not including ocean surface). Sure, do it someday for fun, but not first.
NASA should instead invest the bulk of its R&D in creating one self-replicating space habitat that could duplicate itself using only sunlight and asteroidal ore. If duplicating once per year in a hundred years such a habitat and its offspring would produce thousands of times the habitable surface of the Earth, enough to support trillions of humans and large populations of other species.
Remember: a planet is a very wasteful way to use mass. It is much more efficient to use shells to contain atmosphere. If you wan't gravity, just spin it. If you don't want gravity, live in bubbles.
Related links: /sp acsetl.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I donno, let's check the Constitution.. Nope, don't see anything. Define 'the right'. Under what moral framework?
Moo
I only survive Minnesota winters!
:-)
I guess I'm almost tough enough for mars, but not quite
Aren't we going to terraform Mars or Venus?
Terraforming is a long-term project requiring technology significantly advanced over what we have today. Even terraforming advocates admit it would take a minimum of 200 years to modify Mars to the stage where even simple anaerobic microorganisms and algae can survive. [Ref: Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn J. Fogg, SAE Press 1995.] Space habitats, on the other hand, can be built with today's technology, and would be homes in space which people initiating the program could move into within their lifetimes.
Interstellar travel may someday become possible, but we have no guarantee that Earth-like planets will be as plentiful in the Milky Way galaxy as they have been in Hollywood, CA.
What advantages would orbital settlements have over a colony built on another planet?
Access to 24-hour-a-day sunlight. This makes solar power a consistent, economical energy source. Photovoltaic panels can convert sunlight into electrical current, and solar mirrors can concentrate it for process heat in industrial operations (such as the smelting of ore). A space-based solar concentrator the size of a football field (which could still weigh less than a car) could provide process heat equivalent to the burning of 1 million barrels of oil over 30 years.
Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.
Access to zero gravity. This may have a number of industrial and entertainment possibilities. Structures (such as the above-mentioned solar mirrors) could be built many times larger and flimsier in space than on a planet.
Zero G would be a liability if there were no alternative to it. Astronauts experience loss of bone mass and muscle tone after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. But most of a space habitat would be under Earth-normal gravity, although there would be easy access to regions of reduced gravity and zero G (perhaps for personal flight). With planets, on the other hand, you have to take the gravity that's there, and it's often the wrong kind of gravity to keep us healthy. Lunarians or Martians would probably not be able to visit the Earth (nor accelerate at 1 G).
Long-term expansion of the land area available to the human race. Let's be optimistic and assume that Mars could be made totally Earth-like in the near-term. This would basically double the land area available to humanity, meaning problem solved...until the population doubles again. Right now, that is happening roughly every 40 years. By contrast, if we were to conservatively limit ourselves to using only the resources of the asteroid belt, we could build, in the form of space habitats, 3,000 times the livable surface area of the Earth. This makes space settlement a long-term solution.
Location near the top of Earth's gravity well. We here on Earth are the "gravitationally disadvantaged". We are at the bottom of a pit 6,400 km (4,000 miles) deep. This is what makes space launches from the surface so difficult and expensive. Settlers near the top of the gravity well would be ideally situated for departures to points beyond.
Control of the environment. The weather and other aspects of the surroundings would be those of the inhabitants' choosing. Agriculture in space will benefit from weather control (fresh fruits and vegetables year-round!) and the absence of pests.
Disperse Life
Seastead this.
Because It's There (tm).
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
I may be wrong, but doesn't a planet need a magnetic field to stop the atmosphere from being blasted away by solar radiation?
...remember that crashed NASA probe?
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Even if we could make this happen, do you think the future generations would take the steps necessary to complete the process? I'm sure that generating the PFCs is just one in a chain of events that would have to take place. Sooner or later, future generations will either lost interest, move on to something more exciting, or decide that maybe making this planet more habitable is a more lofty goal.
> resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae)
last I heard somebody even spotted a human in canada.
--
nah, that's Agent Smith saying that humankind 'is a virus... and we are the cure.'
same concept, diff wording. shrug.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
So which am I -- lichen or algae? ;)
-TBHiX-
...currently enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee-flavoured moss, apparently.
"reminds me of what happened during the invasion of Kuwait. Protests were organized saying "No blood for oil," then when the protest was over they got in their cars and drove home."
... I might not agree with them, but in the end, we're all looking for the same thing: a sustainable lifestyle.
I want to make it clear, I'm not putting down people's rights to complain about the world. I mean, after all, growing up in the western world it is very hard to live without conforming to the western lifestyle. After all, not having an address is a crime, and not very fun.
If you take a look at what's behind just having an address, you run into a whole slew of things you as a person are absolutely required to do:
- A job for income, or something gen. money
- Heating for your house, using oil
- A job requires transportation, in some areas cars are the only solution
I mean, there's a lot of different ways to live your life -- but some people consider cars a real necessity just the same as breathing, some people consider guns a necessity too
I don't think it's too ludicrous to see people protesting wars over Oil for their own cars. I don't think it's a bad thing that people who eat meat go and protest fur coats.
After all, I would hope that in my own life I could use a minimal amount of resources to make me happy, and if those resources can be from one place or another, I would want the best choice made by the people I purchase from etc.
But you would never catch me arguing that humanity is unworthy of space exploration, cars, houses, murder, slavery, the atomic bomb, lead based paint, polluted water, war and crime.
These are all problems related to the development of a thumb and speech. In my opinion, the abundance of each, and the lack of each in any part of the world is a reason to be proud of the human race, and in most cases - something to strive towards correcting. I couldn't possibly condemn the world to a slow, uneventful death at it's own hands when it is so obvious we could expand and make our time here much more eventful. It is our right, just the same as everything else we do individually and as a race here on earth.
Ace
Well, it takes what 6 months to get there and back right? Why can't they do somthing like in Red Mars(or green, or blue, one of them) And on the trip to earth have the spacship slowly ramp up it's rotational speed to equal that of earths?
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
At least Canada will serve some purpose in the mission to Mars. ("Wanna know what Mars is like?? Go to Canada") What a great tourist attraction, eh?
I really don't know about this. We've damaged our own environment pretty badly, not always threw neglect, but often through ignorance. Surely we remain largely in the dark in our knowledge of how our atmosphere interacts with our water and our earth, and where we fit in with all of this.
The idea of inflicting ourselves on the whole of Mars is a little unsettling. We may have the best intentions, but do we really know what we're doing?
-Waldo
Hey, I LIVE at 2 G's.
.5g of Chrondroitin sulfate daily. My joint pain has ended. Oh yeah, I also wear nothing but New Balance running shoes, 11 and a half quadrouple D's.
I weigh 330 lbs. About 150 lbs is fat. If I can walk, run, jump and do martial arts, someone in good shape should have absolutely no problem.
Not only am I disabled by the excess weight, but my arteries are no doubt heavily clogged, I have high blood pressure and look forward to lots of health problems as I get older.
The structural load is no problem, I take 1.2 grams of glucosamine sulfate and about
In short, 2 G's is no problemo for humans.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Radiation. There is strong radiation from both the sun an cosmic rays. For a short mission like a two year mission to Mars you can probably survive the dose with only a slightly increased chance for cancer later in your life (still much less than smoking). For permanent settlement, though, you need to do something about it. There is no way to protect against cosmic rays except mass. Lots of it.
On any planet or moon you get a 50% reduction in cosmic rays for free because the bottom half is protected by an enormous mass. On a planet with an atmosphere (practically, only Mars) you also get significant radiation protection from the atmosphere.
On a floating space habitat you will need to cover it with a thick layer of rocks and any kind of junk you can find to get any kind of meaningful radiation protection. Mass is expensive in space because of the delta Vs required to get it where you want it, but it is very cheap on a planet.
Getting direct sunlight for agriculture is more diffcult because you want your protective mass to be transparent. The window panes of agricultural areas will need to be over a foot thick.
Except for radiation protection you will need mass for everything you build, eat or breathe and all of it requires significant delta Vs. Oh, I almost forgot: you also need lots of reaction mass as fuel for generating these delta Vs.
I find the point about absence of pests to be particularly ironic considering the fungus problem on Mir. If you start to do agriculture it is likely to get worse. Perfect quarantine is impossible and once a pest gets there it can get pretty nasty. If you decide that your agriculture areas do not need as much radiation protection as the habitable areas you will get very interesting mutations, too.
Eventually we will probably see both free space and planetary settlements filling different niches in the economic ecology of space.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
wow, they should mod this article (-1, Flamebait)
In fact, during the 17 years I grew up in Newfoundland I cannot ever recall hearing the word about or aboot. Perhaps I lived a sheltered life. But my own Newfie accent (apparent available only when fueled with alcohol) it's closer to abut than aboot or about. (::sigh:: I'm sitting here saying "about" in a rich Newfie accent, and getting wierd looks ... go figure )
Nope. We've got beavers, eh?
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Most of the martian atmosphere is in the form of frozen CO2. All you need to do is keep the CFC production long enough to start the evaporation of this CO2 into the atmosphere. Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas itself the process will be self-sustaining until in about a century most of the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
But your thinking SO short term. Mars is a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and everything beyond. So what if people from mars some time in the future *look* alien? Do the people in Uganda *look* white? Do we need to drag all of our racism to different planets too? Who's to say that they would have any reason to come back to earth anyways. By the time we get enough people on mars to establish a safe enough enviornment, so that people will want to have children... the earth will have 10-15 billion people on it and will be fighting for its survival. The only reason to go to earth for a 'Martian' of that time would be tourism. And your high G scenario is just ignorant. Just think about living on a 2-3 g world. Who is going to be the 1st generation? Certainly nobody living who has grown up in anything less then that g scale. It would be like living while carying someone your weight on your back. You woudn't even be able to sleep properly, never mind spending AT LEAST 8 hours a day helping to terriform this 2-3g planet. So we would have to genetically engineer our children to live in a 2-3g enviornment, and abandon them. Sure we could stay in orbit around the planet and mabye nurture them for a generation or so, but just try and live in 2-3g for more then a week when you've developed on earth or in space. And who wants to live orbiting a world you can never step foot upon for more then a week or two. And lastly, there's nowhere in this solar system that any high adaptation could be done. Earth is the heaviest of the inner sattelites, and none of the outer are even remotely hospitable. They might have moons that could be terraformed, but good F*cking luck living on any planet outside the asteroid belt. -Duane
We don't know what actually may be on Mars. Maybe there is life that we cannot detect. Adding *anything* to their atmosphere could be dangerous.
Have you read my journal today?
I suggest sending a probe full of French people over there.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
If evolution still applies on humans.
At least in industrial states I think there is no natural selection, since there are health-care-systems.
BTW, it's not the strong will survive, it's the strong will breed.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
they could transform the climate of Mars into something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae). This process would take only 100 years, but they estimate it would take nearly 100,000 years for the oxygen levels to increase to a suitable level to sustain human life.
Wow -- I wonder how many Canadians the canadians have managed to survive so long in an environment suitable only for lichens and algae?
Good god, if they have a hundred years before human habitation, they'd better start working fast because they're not gonna be able to hold their breath that long!
But seriously, didn't Slashdot hire RobLimo to be a professional editor? I mean, is it possible, however unlikely, that they would actually read some of the sentences they write to make sure they contain some semblance of logic and meaning?
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Something that the open source community is sure to appreciate is the fact that the Mars community in the books throughs out much of the traditional wisdom on how systems such as the economy should work, and produces somewhat convincing alternatives. In fact, many of the protagonists exhibit the "hacker ethic" of just doing things that work without getting bogged down in rules.
~=Keelor
I don't know what everyones complaining about with Mars being like Canada.
With the Canadian dollar being 3/4 the US dollar it'll cost you 3/4 what it would have if Mars was like the states!
That be fuzzy logic!
of a passage from the Devil's Dictionary:
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earh and Canada.
Boy, if this is true and we can make this work on Mars, the first application of this on Earth could be to make Canada habitable for us Canadians, eh? No doot about it...
...his luggage is on Venus.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
After mankind is done ravaging and raping earth for all it is worth, it'll need another planet to move on to. This would be the most likely reason for us humans to inhabit another planet. Too bad I won't see it in my life time.
Magnetosphere?
:o)
Isn't that the place where Professor X's nemesis hangs out?
"Christ, we as a species fuck up this planet well and good, and now we're just looking for the best way to go to another planet - and fuck it up for good. Face it people - human infestation is a cancer. The universe would be better off without us going, settling, and polluting another planet."
I always love seeing people who believe so strongly that humanity is a cancerous, selfish, destructive entity.
These people would work their whole lives to destroy any attempt at discovery, or exploration of a potential for the human race....
But they never seem to commit suicide like they'd have everyone else do; They also don't live in forests, mostly all of them are not fruitarian, and the only reasons they have to protest advances in technology are usually cited disastors and abuses of power in the past that "humanity is not above", but somehow they are.
Were these people the only people left on earth, they would multiply just the same, and destroy the earth just the same. We're all from the same race, why don't we all find something positive about the human condition; accepting ourselves as the intelligent, curious and progressive species we are is the only choice we have.
Ace
Of course, soon it'll get cloudy and we won't see the Great Yellow Sky God until June, but hey...
No.
I admit the winters are cold, relative, to, say, one of Texas, N.Y., Miami, etc. But summers are very hot, too hot in T.O. I quite like our climate; at least we can hope for a decent amount of snow... :-)
He who fights and runs away,
> Oh, come ON people. It's EXTEREMELY unlikely there's life on mars right now.
I agree.
> You'd need a research base there and a LOT of money and effort to determine if life is there
I disagree completely. To paraphrase Dr. James Lovelock's arguments, look at the only place we are sure that there is life - earth.
The presence of life on earth is frickin' *unmissable* from a million miles away, right down to the copious oxygen and methane in the atmosphere, which wouldn't be there at all otherwise, it sticks out like the very *colour* of the land masses. Life expands. Evolution radiates into all possible niches. It doesn't hide. Like Microsoft it expands, embraces, and extends.
Therefor, (given the limitations of generalising from only one example), when looking for life on other planets, expect it to stick out like a sore thumb.
Therefor, mars is, with a fair degree of certainty, currently barren.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Tee-Shirts! Yes! That was a great episode. BTW I'm 21 and the only reason I don't watch Pinky and the Brain now is because I don't have the time. School and taking over the world take up too much time.
How about Saturn's moon Titan? Nice thick atmosphere to protect against meteorites and radiation. Granted, it's a bit far away, even thinking in terms of space, and making the atmosphere breathable might be rather tricky compared to Mars.
That's not what he said. Question: what is the water vapor trend over the last century? What is the trend for CO2? While you're at it, check out methane and certain PFCs (such as SF5CF3)
The fact that the third world will catch and pollute as much as the US is scary!
On the other hand will probably start something new and so destructive that will wipe them out that they won't even have the time to start doing some serious polution.
Between nano technology, biological weapons and other amazing new techniques, I am sure we will find a way to fuck up real soon...
The good thing with being a nerd is that we will actually understand what is going on when it happens.
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
Highly unlikely. Low g is far more likely to extend lifespan, not shorten it. Far less stress on the body - the circulatory system in particular will be able to work with far less effort and strain.
However, you are certainly correct that after adapting to a low G environment, returning to earth will be difficult to impossible. A few months is doable, but years? Natives born there? Not a chance. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
So on behalf of...well, myself...I officially apologize to all French people including French Canadians and Americans who, like me, have French ancestry. I also apologize to those non-French who took offense at my comment.
And to the moderators: FU TOI!
My mom is not a Karma whore!
One of the most critical questions that we should be asking ourselves is this: Once we get there, is it a good idea to immediately start terraforming the red planet?
One of the most interesting things about Mars is that understanding how Mars formed and its weather systems will help us to understand how things work here on Earth, through what Ames and the Mars Society crew like to call "comparative planetology." However, if humans dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the planet gets hotter, that changes the weather patterns, so Mars would be less useful for understanding Earth.
And, of course, there is the ever-present debate about life on Mars. If the atmosphere gets thicker and the planet gets warmer, Earth-born fungi and bacteria will flourish, "contaminating" the planet and making it very difficult to conclusively prove (or disprove) whether there is or was life on Mars.
Let's just dissect a few of those "Canadians" and figure out how they survive up there, doing nothing but tirelessly toiling in their massive lichen fields and exporting tons of precious algae to fishtanks worldwide.
If anyone up there is living without the need for oxygen, my bet would be on those wacky French-Canadians!
------
Let me give you the lowdown
I've had enough of this Canada bashing. It should be noted that we have beavers, moose, trees, rocks, water, Stockwell Day (Yanks may not know him but he is a hoot), the CN Tower, and Celine Dione. Plus the Arrogant Worms to sing about us. The Arrogant Wroms PS. We are not planning an invasion, 90% of us live on the border anyways.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
While the prospect of terraforming Mars excites me, I wonder whether we should do it. Considering how we've messed up earth, what right do we have to mess with the climate of another planet.
FREE MARS! You can never go back. .apologies to KSR.
-
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
HEY! I resemble that comment. Canada sustains a whole lot more than just algae and lichen!
Now, granted, it's *WAY* too cold for amerikans up here, but we did that on *purpose*!!!
CanaMars: Bringing multiculturalism to a whole new level.
mindslip
Actually, I'd say that Mars is like Canada except there are none of the annoying, whining Canadians there. Particularly with their 'stomp the styrafoam project', Monopoly money currency (you pinched our name), constant harping about health care and all that.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Who gives a rat's ass... You'd think the universe would be large enough for no one else to notice or care.
Historically, colonists don't come back. It was prohibitively expensive for colonists to the New World, etc to come home. People have been willing to accept that in the past, they probably will in the future too...
Am I the only person that thinks there is something subtly horrific about us entertaining ideas of terraforming and colonizing another planet when we don't even know how to take care of the one we already have?
What is more, I am fairly appalled by the idea that we would be purposely initiating global warming on another planet. I mean, as a species, we have plainly demonstrated that we cannot control or moderate our impact on the environment and weather of this planet, our only home. So what is the solution? Let's go muck with the environment and weather on another planet so we have some place to go when we can no longer live here.
That's just great, people.
Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
2.54 cm.
All the Molson you can drink and Younge Street with a view of Olympus Mons!!
I'm so there..
-----------
end communication
One wonders how long it would take to make Canada habitable.
The fact that I'm posting this from Canada implies that Canada can support more life than algae and lichen. (Perhaps Margarita Miranova meant northern arctic Canada? Or Leander Kahney misattributed something? Whatever happened, sheesh. We do have hot summers here, people. And this from Wired and/or MIT. Sigh.)
And while Mars is not zero G. It is roughly 1/3 G. Long term residence on Mars will weaken people, possibly to the point to where they can never return to Earth. Human lifespan on Mars may also be severely shortened.
And what happens when children are born on Mars? They will grow up in that light gravity environment and certainly be bound to Mars forever. Lesser gravity may cause them to physically develop oddly too. They will *look* alien!
On the other hand, if low G is detrimental... it'd be interesting to see what happens to people living in a high gravity environment for long periods of time, say 2-3 G. Would children born in that enviroment develop super strength? The IOC will have to ban athletes from high G environments from participating in the Olympics. Life in high G could be achieved on Earth. Anyone tried puting humans in a low speed centrifuge chambre for long periods of time (months or longer)?
Hahaha, I got it! But I live in Montreal so I guess that explains it.. (Ice Storm Flashbacks...)
"The genes are the master programmers, and they are programming for their lives" - Richard Dawkins
Well, OK, but seriously, would Mars be improved by a Union Carbide plant? A couple Wal-Marts? Some fast food joints, a Gap and a Planet Hollywood Mars?
I just hope that when we do colonize Mars we don't end up building the same stupid-ass crap we polluted our Earth landscape with. Or maybe that should be stupid ass-crap. Whatever. Call me an aesthetic environmentalist, fine, but I don't want to share another planet with polluting megacorps, chain stores, and obnoxious developers.
I agree there's nothing wrong with changing an environment per se, but suggesting that everything is equal under the eyes of God... er, I mean, science... is a little disingenuous. It suggests that living next to a nuke plant (which I'm told is actually perfectly safe as long as mean old Mr. Radiation stays in the reactor where he's supposed to be) should be just as desirable as living next to a national park, and that we should revere our strip malls like we do our old-growth forests. I mean, if you feel that way, cool, go for it... but I'm not buying it as part of some kind of superior, logical argument.
I have to question the logic of terraforming Mars. First your trying to produce an environment exactly like Earth, an uncontrolable environment. The whole of human civilization has been an effort to produce a controled environment. Nearly all of human technology is dedicated to isolating us from our environment. We work in hermeticaly sealed buildings, travel in airconditioned cars, fight natural ailments with manmade drugs. Let's face it, we really don't like living on planet Earth, why would we want to build another not as good? A better use of Mars would be to use the material Mars represents for the construction of Space Colonies. There you would have a totally controled environment and the freedom of space would be a short elevator ride away. Mars, a cold dry dead planet, leave it that way.
There's a serious effort for a manned exploration of Mars. In fact, NASA's budjet has most of it's money, post-International space station, going to various Mars missions. Look at the recent missions to Mars- one of them was supposed to be a satellite that was supposed to orbit Mars and relay signals from the surface of Mars to Earth. NASA is already doing experiments on having people living on recycled air and water for extended periods of time. And there are serious efforts on designing space suits for Mars, etc. Perhaps the most serious efforts are going into desiging a spaceship to simulat gravity. There are various books on Mars, such as ones by Bob Zubrin. In fact, I think this guy is the most visible advocate ofMars.
If mars becomes like Canada I want to be the first to ridet my snowmobile on martian snow. eh!
hmm, Mars could become quite the ski destination, we could send all the MS-employee's there, and keep them outa Whistler!
"Nyquil - The stuffy, sneezy, why-the-hell-is-the-room-spinning medicine."
it was sold to a company in the states. one of our more disipointing moments.
Before trying to make Mars habitable we should first make sure that we can keep Earth in decent shape.
After the article I read on fungus dwelling on the space station and slowly eating it away, it made me consider something:
Are those probes and rovers we're sending to Mars sterile? I would bet not. Granted there's not much living material that'd hitch a ride with the rover, but what if a sensor picks up a piece of recently-dead fungus and suddenly decides that it originated on Mars, when in fact, it originally came from Earth.
Ok, enough of my thinking out loud. I'm sure you get my point.
but then would babies born in 2-3 g be able to adapt before they died? aren't people tied to earth from birth?
...who's from Venus?
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
So I as part of the human race have a right to do whatever I want to any other member of the human race. Just because a particular group is part of a larger group doesn't give it unlimited rights to do whatever it wants to anything else. Perhaps our actions would be 'natural'--they certainly wouldn't violate laws of physics, but that doesn't mean they are right or defendable as just. As soon people start realizing that a few extra neurons doesn't mean they can permanently and irreversibly change absoulutly everything they come across, we might, along with everything else, might have a future. Until then it's only a matter of time until Earth (and, likely, anywhere we happen to go) become uninhabitable.
/* This post not warrantied for mission critical applications. */
The better than 3 orders of magnitude greater potential population of space habitats demands some rationality be applied to this argument.
Even assuming both space habitation and planetary terraforming habitation would take comparable amounts of time, the planetary option just isn't important at .1% of carrying capacity.
Seastead this.
No doot aboot it!
a whole PLANET devoted towards the production of Canadian Dry ginger ale.
Well, you know what they say: "Free as in beer, or as in speech?"
Yes. To simulate such an environment, I have equiped my body with a lead suit that doubles my body weight. When I take the suit off, I am able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I've also discovered that all of that shielding has sensitised my eyes to X-Rays, and that now I can see through objects. Born to a gifted politician, I was lucky enough to be sent to the best of schools, and become a mild mannered reporter. Later, after dropping out of law school and divinity school, I took up the cause of the people. I have used my super skills to put forward key legislation on all items important and now I'm running for President of the United States. Please vote for me.
I disagree. I think it would take much longer for Mars to become that comfortable. Not only is temperature an issue, but so is pressure. I wonder if they might have trouble theoretically because of mars' lower mass (and therefore lower gravity). Also, it would take an enormous amount of work to get the PFC's or to manufacture the PFC's on Mars. Geez, it is going to be at LEAST 100 years before we can think of such a project.
-Moondog
UBU
If astronauts were give elasticated body-suits then they would be forced to use those muscles to stop from folding into a ball.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Um no! The scrapped the project and destroyed all the prototypes and blueprints (most of them)
It is very rare to find actual intact blueprints and parts from the planes. The one in the movie (206) that flys off at the end, is complete fake. And the commercials about the farmer having a "secret" in his barn is complete BS too.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
I think we should rename Mars to planet Molson. One whole planet devoted to the creating of beer. eh
I love to skydive. I wonder what it would be like on Mars do to the reduced gravity? What would the terminal velocity be? (Assuming of course that there was an atmosphere like Earths which would slow you down.)
Skydive DeLand
Face it people - human infestation is a cancer. -
I think you have quoted a line from the Matrix. I guess that says where your train of thought is coming from.
Kim Stanley Robinson has written a trilogy of novels -- Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars -- that address this very issue. I'd call them required reading for anyone who wants to think seriously about terraforming Mars. The science is solid, and the exploration of future politics is very interesting.
One of the major political divisions among the human colonists in the novels is between the "Greens", who favor terraforming, and the "Reds" who oppose it for the reasons you describe.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
For that matter, who cares about putting life on Mars within 100 years? If it's because it's the first step to terraforming it so it's habitable by humans in 100,000 years, that's kind of silly. Why talk about doing something today that's ridiculously hard with today's technology so that our super-advanced descendents can benefit from it? They'll have such insane technology that they'll laugh at anything we did right now.
Find free books.
You mean martians have yappy neighbours too? q:]
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I hope they don't use the same engineers that stuffed up the calculations for the Mars Climate Orbiter last year, otherwise Mars could end up being like Venus instead.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Geeze, we haven't even finished destroying our own planet, and we're cooking up plans for massively altering others? At least this Mars deal will take long enough that we can screw a planet up right this time.
that NASA should let itself be taken over by the Canadians. Since everyone who lives up here already has the ability to live on mars, using only our normal winter clothing, and stoic egos, NASA is only wasting money on highly trained astronauts. Believe me, anyone who has ever tried to get a car out of a snow bank with a plastic shovel and some sand, knows more about retro-thrust and physics than ANY MIT grad. And I bet putting the shuttle in proper orbit is a lot easier than finding a parking spot at Canadian Tire. (None one down there is going to understand that joke. Oh well.)
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do" E.Roosevelt
I look at it like this. The universe as we know it is comprehended by terms, definitions and theories all invented by the human mind. We are right because nothing is telling us we are wrong. So if we destroy this planet and move to another and destroy it, what does it really mean? In actuality we have no idea what the universe is, and why any of this even exists. So why not have a little fun being the planet anhilators that we are, and make up some more cool shit along the way. As far as we are concerned, we OWN the universe. We can do as we please.
There will be more than one strian of Human, eventually. Evolution dictates that humans will have to change. Some babies will be born adapted to high-G, and prosper, while babies not adapted will perish. Natural Selection. The strong will survive. The earth-humans will survive on earth, and probably not be able to interbreed with alien humans. This will of course take a VERY long time.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
And while Mars is not zero G. It is roughly 1/3 G.
On the other hand, people can drink 2/3 more beer, to weigh them down.
People would drink LESS beer. There is less resistance to the alchohol flowing through their veins therefore needing less :)
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
So I here you're from mars, eh? Want a Donut? Where's your touque, eh? Do they have running water on mars? No DOOT ABOOT IT!!!!!! Martian incident insues (This is funny for Canadians Only)
...otherwise Mars won't be ready by the time we're global-warmed Earth into another Venus.
1. Sudbury, Ontario, Canada was used by NASA in the 60s to test lunar vehicles because it closely resembles the moon. They also have a giant nickel there. Canadians like to make fun of both of those things.
2. Speaking of global warming, I think it's good for Canada. Think about it, Toronto becomes tropical and the tundra up North becomes habitable and good for farms while most of the rest of the world becomes an arid, lifeless desert. Secretly, the Canadian federal government is undermining the Kyoto agreement. (Oh great, now I'm on file at CSIS) :)
You may scoff, but us lichen and algae up here in Canada are fairly technologically advanced. We can post on Slashdot, for example.
Canada has a lot of climates as you go south to north, so I imagine they mean it will be like the climate of the high arctic. There is still a thriving ecosystem up there that goes beyond lichen and algae, though (Inuit need more than that to live on) so I'm still not sure why they limit the ecology of Mars to just those two.
Do we have the right to do this? To purposfully alter the entire landscape of a foreign planet? True, we could get rid of pollution here and use it for a purpose there. True, we could see what different types of mold grows there (Hey, a new breed of penicillan that won't become resisted against until 50 more years of doctor abuse is up), but by what right to we have to mess with a perfectly normal system?
To write a haiku - all you need is the correct - number of syli...
Jeez, Canada is being taken for Mars more all the time. We had that crappy Mars movie shot around Vancouver, and they spray painted an entire valley red. The Mars society is using the North to see how humans will survive up there. And now we have scientists telling us that the CLIMATE of Mars will be like north of the 49th?
I hereby propose that we Canucks grap about 750Ml (that's Mega-litres, or about 4.5 million gallons) of PFC producing white paint, 3 or 4 thousand beers, take the Avro Arrow out of mothballs, fly to Mars and lay down an enormous Canadian Flag on the surface. Should seem like home in a real short time.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
a whole PLANET devoted towards the production of Canadian Dry ginger ale.
well, at that point, it becomes 'well, if there wasn't before, there is NOW...' :)
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Up to this point in human history conservationists have focused their attentions on saving the planet.
:)
Whilst we don't have any real pristine wilderness areas with the possible exception of Antarctica (if you don't take into account the fact that it is sitting underneath a huge gapping hole in the ozone layer and it is melting at an alarming rate) we do still have other planets which humanity hasn't yet managed to destroy/pollute.
Is it possible that the conservationists psyche will move from "Save the Planet" to "Save the Solar System" in the not too distant future.
Are there any treaties preventing Canadians from sending up a bundle of PFCs to Mars or any other planet without consulting the rest of the world and then mass migrating? As man starts to leave this over populated over polluted wasteland we now call home and spreads to new outposts of civilization will there still be a conservationist movement watching over mankinds proliferation into the neighbouring planets?
Sorry forgot to login for the A/C post
1. The South Park episode this will inspire.
2. The outcry and street marches organised by the conservation group 'RedPeace'.
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:wq
So as long as Canada has lots of room left, why go to all the trouble of terraforming Mars and then moving there?
Come on over, eh! BTW: BYOB - except you yanks, for you that means "Bring Your Own Barley", and we'll turn it into real beer once you get here.