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Planning For The Colonization Of Mars
Tiburana writes: "NASA recently held a conference called "The Physics and Biology of Making Mars Habitable". The current line of inquiry is to introduce microbes to recreate the greenhouse effect that is wreaking havoc on our environemnt to raise the temperature of the Martian surface to accomodate the types of life with which we are familiar.
" The submittor also expressed some concerns about how humans handling of the Earth - and whether we'll repeat the same problems on other planets.
The url http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/b12.htm#reliable is filled with suggestions for how earth-bound vegans can add vit-B12 to their diets.
It looks like some dinosaurs managed to survive...
The current line of inquiry is to introduce microbes to recreate the greenhouse effect that is wreaking havoc on our environemnt...
The greeehouse effect keeps our planet from being about 60 degrees F colder than it is and makes life possible. The greenhouse effect is GOOD. Greenhouse warming (also called the enhanced greenhouse effect) is what has people concerned.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
While building up the Martian atmosphere to 'normal' pressures and such is nice, what about the gravity over there? I believe part of the reason Mars' atmosphere isn't as thick as Earth's has to do with the inability to hold on to the atmosphere. The solar 'wind' will strip the air right off the planet.
If I'm wrong, fine, but tell me why.
4.5 billion years to form the Earth as we know it, and your quibling over 30 years? Or 3 million years for us to go from rock axes to rocket ships. A little perspective please.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
About 2 hours ago, I learned that you should never chew on a cigarette lighter.
Normal people wouldn't have to learn this lesson the hard way, but I'm not normal. Among other neuroses, I'm orally fixated and always have to be chewing on something. It's not my fault though - it's because I was never properly weaned.
Anyway, I was writing some code and idly chewing on a disposable cigarette lighter when I spotted a bug. A stupid bug. A "=" instead of "==" bug. This annoyed me a little bit, and caused me to clench my teeth.
Big mistake.
For those of you majoring in English or Journalism - butane (the fluid inside a cigarette lighter) is a gas at room temperature. It stays in liquid form inside the lighter because it is under pressure. By cracking the case of the lighter, I cause the contents to evaporate almost instantly. Since vaporization is endothermic, this dropped the temperature of one of my teeth somewhere close to 32 degrees farenheit. This, in turn dropped me to the floor where I began whimpering in pain.
But that's not all. I also got a lungful of the stuff. Not good. To quote from the MSDS for butane: "Inhalation causes headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, and nausea, and may lead to unconsciousness. Liquid can cause burns similar to frostbite." That's no lie. I've vomited twice and am feeling quite faint.
So let this be a lesson to those of you wishing to colonize mars: don't chew cigarette lighters on the trip over.
--Shoeboy
Hey, isn't there an international treaty that prevents the introduction of earth-based life to other planets and the moon? Someone at JPL told me this, but it was a long time ago and maybe it doesn't apply any more.
Nasa guy: "Our next expedition will be to land a man on the sun"
Reporter: "How can you do that?!? It's too hot!"
Nasa guy: "Oh, don't worry; he'll land at night."
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
But what happens when they find the downed alien spacecraft full of head-grabbers that plant embryos deep into your body? Sure, things will be fine for 2-3 days or so but then you'll have this big pain in your chest and an alien will pop out.
Where's the fun in that?
der dee der.
Wow. A thread about terraforming Mars, and nobody has managed to mention Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars / Green Mars / Blue Mars series? A lot of the discussions in this tread are remarkably similar to the "Red" and "Green" politics that sprouted up in the books.
The Greens were in favor of terraforming Mars. Anything that raised the oxygen level and ambient temperature was favored. Seed the atmosphere and surface with plants to increase oxygen. Set up nuclear reactors and let them meltdown to generate heat (and free up water from deep under the soil as they did the China Syndrome bit).
The Reds wanted to preserve Mars in its natural state, and tried to sabotage the efforts of the Greens.
Personally, I lean towards the Greens. Sure there are some features that would be worth preserving (in the sense of "don't bulldoze it just to put up a McMarsBurger joint"), just as we have national parks to preserve beautiful areas here on Earth. But I think we can be reasonably sure now that there is no life on Mars above the microbe level (darn it). So let's feel free to use it as a laboratory.
--
Ernest MacDougal Campbell III / NIC Handle: EMC3
Ernest MacDougal Campbell III
geek ramblings
To my knowledge, there isn't a fourth one...
David Corbin Promote Freedom - American Liberty Foundation
Meat is tasty :)
It's only a political problem if you intend to force other people to do it. Otherwise go buy as much land as you want in Egypt and start planting. Keep following the winds westward...
We don't yet have practical inertial-confinement fusion, so for Orion drives we'd have to use somewhat dirty fission bombs. So we won't be using them unless there's an emergency when we have to get a lot of mass out of our gravity well. (No, there's only a shortage of nuclear fuel down here. The Moon is probably coated with tritium and every metallic asteroid has some fissionables.)
We used liquid oxygen and hydrogen in the Saturn V, and the Shuttle ascent engines. We could create fully reusable H+O designs -- several were considered for the Shuttle. The easiest to create probably would be the piggyback -- a large aircraft which takes the orbiter partway up and gives it the initial acceleration. Most of the fuel would return to Earth as water. But now NASA thinks it can do surface-to-orbit in a single device.
It's really a matter of someone spending enough money to build the things. Right now several commercial firms are already in the rocketry business. The more business they get, the more launch vehicles will be developed.
Well, if a change in Earth's tilt triggered the change then fixing it will be an Earth-shaking project. If Himalayan erosion cooled Earth, the fix might be as simple as sealing the mountains in plastic.
That's "translucent". A "translucid" rock is one which speaks and thinks, but not clearly.
(2) Earth people have trouble returning after living in zero gravity, although the amount of trouble depends upon how much exercise they do. We don't know the health effects of lifetime 0.3G, and the effect of Earth gravity does not matter to someone who does not go to Earth. People are not required to come to Earth, just as they're not required to travel to the North Pole...although some do.
"Martian Ecosystem," my ass!
"To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individu
We are allready in the process of destroying the earth. What right Do we have to destroy another planet?
:) and maybe even if we didn't, hard to say though - again life is pretty resilient stuff and people are a good example of that.
Hardly. I don't think it's remotely in the range of current human technologies to destroy the erath or any other planet. It's a lot of work just to make a fair size scratch in the surface.
We MIGHT be able to do something as extreme, say, as wiping out all life on the planet. Still not at all likely (life is pretty resilient stuff), but difficult to say it's actually impossible.
We almost certainly can cause, and indeed have caused, some big impacts on the eco system. We can wipe out whole species for example, we could certainly wipe out ourselves if only we'd all cooperate in the effort
Wiping out planets though? For the time being, leave it for the sci-fi movies. Chances are Earth and Mars will both be here long after the last human dies.
That's not to say experiments are without risk, there MIGHT be some form of life on mars and it'd be a tragedy to just wipe it out. Even withotu any life there, there is almost certainly much that we ould want to study without first changing the environment so drastically. Also, any mistakes in early attempts might make eventual success in terraforming harder or impossible but that would be no reason to put off trying forever.
To put it mildly: You arrogantly assume that your leftward philosophical viewpoint is the norm amongst all space faring species (should they exist [which is a guess]).
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
2)Bunk.
3)Don't we own the planet? Ownership can only be claimed by sentient, sapient beings. It is, in fact, a very human concept. So if we don't own our own planet, then who does? If we don't own Mars, then who does? "Later generations"? They aren't here yet.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
I agree that we don't currently care enough as a culture to do it now. I also very much doubt that a majority of American culture will EVER want to do it. However, once the technology drops in cost so that a sufficiently large private group can do it, it'll happen.
Plymouth rock, anyone?
Just like every other colonization wave in history, a small group breaks off and leaves, leaving the majority behind. It seems to be how our species spreads.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
Seem to remeber an artical about how Mars has little or no magnetic field which protects our atmosphere. Otherwise the solar winds would strip away the gases we need to live. At what rate this stripping of gases happens was not communicated but it seems that it would be a factor to terraforming Mars. And kick starting the core of Mars seems quite a waste of energy and living under a dome doesn't sound like real great strides in quality of life if you believe we'd be doing the same on Earth after we've fskd the environment. Sounds like a lot of hot air and grant filling is going on and little honest science. Something that has tickled the imagination of Q-public so the NASA boys grab hold. Whatever, they have kids to feed, and I'd rather see my taxes go there than DU ammo for tank killers or other such civilization advancing tech we blow stupid amounts of money on.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, the Geological and meterological history of Mars is intereting and importent to studdy, but it's just plain moronic to suggest that Mars' geology and weather is an ecosystem.. there is no life on Mars (yet). Specifically, you are claiming that Mars' geology and weather are more intereting then Earth's geology, weather, life, and Human history *combined*. This is total bullshit.
Also, teraforming is unlikely to really transform the Geology beyond recognishion, i.e. we will still have many human lifetimes to studdy it. the only thing we will really damage is the weather, but I think it's safe to say that the "preperations" for teraforming will do considerable studdy of the weather and the changes will be quite intersting themselves.
Regardless, adding life to a lifeless enviroment can only be a good thing.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
why dump our waste on a planet? Just shoot it towards the sun and let our cosmic vacuum cleaner do its job.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Kim Stanley Robinson would be proud of this debate. Reds versus Greens in a nascent form.
The submittor also expressed some concerns about how humans handling of the Earth - and whether we'll repeat the same problems on other planets.
Duh!
Actually, China's Space program is getting really big. They're planning to go to Mars, and I think they see it as an important thing to achieve before the US does, to confirm their status as superpower.
check here
Don't count on the US dominating completely.
It is vital that the newly-created conditions on Mars be tested -- vote now!
1) CmdrTaco
2) Hemos
3) CowboyNeal
But question: what happens if the microbes evolve into something that may be harmful?
And will these microbes create enough rainforests for us to cut down? Or will we just cut down CowboyNeal instead?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
I wonder if anyone has attempted to accurately simulate the Mars environment here on earth? If, so, wouldn't it be a interesting testbed for this teory?
Marketing people get on first. Please.
A piece of my brain is missing.
It doesnt make sense to move to another planet, if we cant live in this planet that has all the elements we need to live, it will be a lot worse in mars. Why not spend all that money to cur cancer or aids or all those rare deseases that are killing us.
When that Russian sub went down, for example, if the Russians hadn't been such idiots about it, the sailors probably could have been rescued. Or am I remembering incorrectly?
Moon colonists would be completely screwed. Unless things have completely changed, you can't scramble for a shuttle launch the way you can scramble a sub.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again: we should be on the moon *now*, dammit. We should be celebrating the 20th (if not the 25th!) anniversary of the Lunar colonies, we should be reading articles in Time magazine about the first generation of children born on the moon, we should be hearing about how the moon was used as a staging area for the launch of our Mars expedition, "now in its tenth year and still making incredible discoveries every day". We are so far behind where we should be...what the hell happened?
Obviously incorrect. Two children per couple would only stabilize the population if you also add that everyone is forced to be part of one couple (including avoiding dying prior to coupling of course), at present this is clearly not the case. Depending on how you count the couples, two children per couple would either increase or decrease the population.
"Two children per couple" means two children born for every two human beings in the world, on a space-time average. It's an average figure, I'm not saying that every "couple" should have two kids.
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Unless people suddenly stop reproducing (...) we will run out of resources here on Earth.
No need for that. Two children per couple and the population will stabilize, less than that and our number will lower.
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Two children per two people is indeed the same as one child per person, but I think most people would take 'per couple' to imply some sort of relationship between the people involved. The number of 'couples' as normally understood is clearly different to half the number of individuals.
Yes, I think you're right...
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Because cancer and aids are not a threat to humanity i.e. they are killing individual people, but are not killing *us*. If we cure all diseases and live really long, we will eventually have to colonize other planets because Earth will not be enough. Better start early than scramble later on.
You brought up a good point. It would definitely benefit more if we spend the money on Earth to improve things - cleaning up the environment, improving or replacing existing infrastructures, finding better ways to grow food w/o damaging the environment, population control, and so on... Countries like India needs to keep their populations in check, the population explosions existing there only worsens the problems they already have... poverty, food shortage, diseases, environmental damage, etc. What is the purpose of colonizing Mars? So that we can pollute it like what we're doing to this planet now?
Terraforming Mars is a gigantic endeaver... biggest ever by the human race if it ever takes place. I don't think such a large project can take place without the cooperation of all the nations in the world. And we haven't even solved that one yet. IMO, the world is not ready, even if the technology is there.
Sounds like a science fiction movie with an alien torturing poor humans with an anal probe.
Back on planet Earth: were we talking about a submitter ?
Although it is obviously the US that is closest (if anyone actually is close at all) to colonising Mars, does that necessarily mean that they're free to work on a new habitat that could then become an exclusive extension of that country? It would be ironic to have to aquire a green card to go to Mars in a couple of hundred years :-)
It seems that there's plenty of space on earth that has not been properly colonised. The most dense urban areas needs to be reconstructed in more environmentally friendly ways, and third-world countries desparately needs infrastructure. Perhaps we should deal with some of these problems before we wreak havoc on another planet.
-.sig sauer-
1)Interplanetary colonization will ultimately result in the same crises as international colonization has in our global history: class exploitation, the introduction of new species into ecosystems with disastrous results (in this case even ecosystems we propose to create) and international conflict.
2)We as a species are under the misapprehension that the land, water, air, plants and animals with which we share this planet are 'resources' at our disposal. We have not yet learned how to responsibly interact with our environment with regards to other organisms and future generations. We cannot be trusted with another biosphere.
3)Even if one and two were not true, as geologically ephemeral inhabitants of the earth we do not own this planet, much less the rest of the solar system, galaxy or universe in which we live.
The problem with the agreement is that even if the U.S. does not have 'exclusive' rights to Mars it is highly likely that it will have de facto control of the economy. It's all well and good to say that anyone can go but the fact is that we are one of two nations that can actually get there.
I would also add that we can only see what we are looking for. Our inability to find lifeforms on Mars may in fact be limited to what our conception of a lifeform is.
I think what he may be talking about is the idea of swarming a planet with cheap, uneducated and potentially modified/augmented 'drones' for want of a better word. They'd do the leg work, get mechanical adaptations and be taught how to obey and perform specific tasks. They'd soak up much of the dangers, statisically speaking, reducing the losses of any trained, natural born humans. There would be a core of natural born scientists and stuff to give orders.
Come on, people. This is the mainstay of science fiction stuff... it may never happen 8(, but it doesn't make his remarks crypic - then again, maybe you're not geeky enough to have read as much sci-fi as I have 8). The book that sticks in my mind as an introduction to the concept is "Forty Thousand in Gehanna"...I forget who it's by.
8)
Concrete analysis...
How can they even think of environmental problems on another planet when we have not even left our own. NASA should try and do some work instead of crashing spacecraft and wasting federal funds.
I think it depends on weather the driving force in the colony(ies) is commercial or some sort of government conglomerate. Even today where we know for sure we have a problem, commercial concerns keep us from adjusting fast enough; commerce cares about the bottom line and little else it seems, and I can't see it taking care with another planet if it doesn't with its own. What a government would do is of course uncertain, but I think they would try to at least make everyone believe they were not making the same mistakes as on Earth - what the reality would be is anyone's guess.
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
Before we start tampering with Mars to make it livable for us humans, we should first do a highly thorough (sp?) geological and biological review. Especially if there is or has been life there. There are many, many mysteries on Mars, and just terraforming the planet before we study these mysteries will most likely destroy them.
I would hold off terraforming for at least five years after first landing, to give time for the hands-on research of the planet. Otherwise, it will be like when the Spaniards came to North and Central America, destroying cultures before understanding them.
Heed my warning, people! There are things we should know about Mars before we change it to whatever we want.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
Hehehe! The sun? Somebody give him a point for Funny!
But seriously, you're right, save for meteor and the sun. IMHO, colonization of a meteor would never work. This belief I shall hold until you can tell me, where shall we place it? What use would it be? Etc.
And colonization of the sun is completely unfeasible. It's so boilingly hot!
But yes, start with the oceans, then the moon (it's time someone goes back there... are you listening NASA?), and then Mars. But not before understanding Mars and it's mysteries (See the post just above this one).
And after Mars, that opens us up to the asteroid belt, which supposedly is very mineral-rich. Mining operations, defense of the inner planets (in case we aren't alone), etc.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
What happened was the Russians gave up the moon, so the Americans decided, "aw, fsck it. Let's just sit on our asses like the lazy NASA dumbasses we are."
Of course, I haven't seen anything to prevent non-government organizations putting people into space, save costs. So if we didn't have money, we'd prolly have people on the moon, and Mars, etc.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
Dog is my co-pilot.
There's another biosphere that's pretty much alien to us that we really haven't taken advantage of yet, the deep sea. Land covers only a third or so of the earth. I think that many of the same challenges we face in deep space, we would also face in the oceans. If we can survive the oceans, we will have much of the knowledge needed to survive on other planets.
While I'm just as anxious as any other person to get into space, there are alternatives.
-Kef
He may also be talking about the potential for cloning of individual organs to greatly extend one's life expectancy. It won't get you to Mars any faster, but it might keep you alive long enough to do it the slow way.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
The big question here is one of morality and "right." When somebody starts explaining their opinion about what we should or shouldn't do to a planet in terms of ownership, things get messy. Statements like "We don't own Earth" or "We do own Earth" tend to presume that there is someone or something else which could claim ownership of an entire planet. I think that a discussion of morality should not be camouflaged as a discussion of ownership.
IMHO, humans are doing pretty well at fucking up Earth, and don't need another planet to mess with. Most of the reasons people think we shouldn't go to Mars stem from the fact that the large-scale society of Earth (international politics and macroeconomics) resembles a room full of screaming 6-year-olds trying to decide who gets to play with which toys. If human society ever begins to resemble something more rational and mature, maybe then we can be trusted not to completely fuck up some other planet.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
stuff
Although colonizing Mars sounds a lot cooler, perhaps, humans should start with Antarctida?
There is an entire continent with, what, a few dozen people living on it. I suspect, the living conditions are a LOT better there than on Mars (it is cool, but not nearly as cool as Mars), and it is SO much closer and easier to get to...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Did you ever stop to think how well a Donner Party vegan would eat? :)
WhatEVA
YOu are completly correct. even if there is any kind of enviroment, it is a minimal one, and I mean MINIMAL. I mean we're talking about a few microbes, ya whatever I say squish em' flat. I feel that when inter-solar travel becomes more cost effective we should select a "dead planet", like mercury, and start dumping our crap and radioactive/toxic wastes on it. I mean who all is really going to care ??? I sure won't and I doubt that the rest of the planet would concidering that no one would be forced to live with the stuff any longer.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
I would suspect that our microbes would easily kill off any martian ones, and martian microbes wouldn't stand a chance on earth.
Will code a sig generator for food
1. We don't like the idea of constructing a race superior to ours (or even different).
2. It is our human tradition to adapt the environment to us, instead of adpating to the environment. Why? Because it's a faster and less complicated change. Humans are vegetarians by nature. The only reason we eat meat is because we cook it! Instead of making our teeth stronger, we made the meat softer! I think that is the human way of doing things, and it is brilliant. It has allowed us to do so many things. Why wait until we have changed the genes of a few, when we can find a way of adapting the environment to suit many!
Will code a sig generator for food
Your point about Earth-based "oxygenophobes" may also be beside the mark. Certainly, there are bugs in our body that thrive in low O2 environments. But as far as I know, they all use nitrogen gas to survive. So in that way, it's like comparing apples to PalmPilots. OTOH, N2 is nearly as unreactive as the noble gases, so its doubtful that Martian life would find it poisonous.
It is possible that there is life on Mars that's just waiting to take advantage of the new environment we could provide. But it's highly unlikely, since evolution would have done everything to prepare Martian life for a Martian environment, and nothing to prepare it for ours. A more likely scenario would be one where the life we try to seed on Mars starts evolving rapidly and becomes dangerous to both humans and other imported life.
I've made several grand pronouncements on evolutionary theory. They're based on nothing more substantial than a few Stephen Jay Gould books I read a few years back. So if anyone out there knows better, I humbly request that you make me look stupid.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Of course, the Moon is much smaller than Mars, so one would guess that it would suffer fewer impacts just because it's a smaller target. One would be wrong. In fact, the Earth acts like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking debris into itself and the Moon alike.
These two facts would indicate that the Moon is in a higher traffic area than Mars is, so the fact that Mars has fewer organics isn't surprising.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The gravity isn't strong enough. We've been designed to develop in a 1G environment over billions of years. I'd hate to see the freaks that would develop after being conceived and born there - all kinds of heart and bone deformities. They'd probably have a life span of 1 month with good intensive care.
The mass of earth is 5.98E24 while mars is 6.42E23. Earth is 9.3 times more massive than mars!
So until our understands of physics allows us to alter gravity fields, we will be stuck on earth or on giant orbiting gravitrons a la 2001.
I wanna get one of those holiday implants like in Total Recall... I just hope everything turns out better this time.
Sorry to reply to my own comment but something got cut out. even then not many people /. readers dont count would want to live there. It would be taking a BIG step back in time practically.
Later
Lord Arathres
stainless steel
I love the quality of thought that has gone into the technical aspects of this problem. But the base assumption that this must be accomplished with "public" money (loot) is troublesome to me.
Why not let me keep my money, instead of swiping it for some official state-sanctioned crusade to Mars? Why not let those who want to go polish that rock go and do it with their own damn money? If they can do it, more power to 'em.
Without progressive taxes it wouldn't be as hard to get to Gates' and Ellison's level of wealth. Imagine actually keeping the value you create! And they're probably just at ground floor of the amount of wealth required to mount a project this ambitious. Imagine what they and other men like them could accomplish without Lilliputian tripwires. How can a bureaucracy compete with an equivalently-provisioned passionate individual in the pursuit of a productive goal?
Some are already laying the groundwork. First one to live on mars for a year and come back alive owns it. It's the Homestead Act for Mars!
-B...
It's a good step in the right direction that this type of thing is being discussed; we're moving from the stuff of sci-fi literature to having a real discussion of the feasibility of doing these things. The more discussion there is, the less foreign the idea will start sounding, more excitement will be generated, and we'll be that much closer to colonizing other planets; it certainly makes the Hawkings prediction even more tantalizing!
Your comments about NASA are dead on. It's no difference than any other old fashioned industry with a monoply on the product (space shuttle). Mark my words: NASA will not be the first agency/group to land a human on Mars. (barring some presidential directive tomorrow to reach mars in the next 10 years) it will be private industry. Hell, any schmoe with an extra 10 billion dollars (Bill, I'm talking to you!)could get Zubrin's Mars Direct going. And Mars Direct should lead directly to colonization.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
Supergun!!!!!
I wouldn't really call Earth properly colonized. Perhaps we should fix Earth first and then worry about other planets?
Colonization of Mars? You can use all the old 'it's human nature to explore' sayings that you like, but when it comes down to it without this endevor producing profit corporations will never fund it. Not to mention that governments will never fund it without a way for that government to have control over the colony. It is my considered opinion that as humans and the nature of such beasts that we will not seriously consider doing anything with or to mars untill we have made this planet uninhabitable either through depletion of natural resources, polution or over population. And in that event it will be more like a mass exodus of refugees as opposed to a handful of colonists.
The thing I like most about this job is all the rocket scientists who bang their mice on their desks shouting 'It Broke!
1) Way out of proportion... it will take decades to get enough people onto Mars to even begin to affect things, and even then it will be pretty slow. It seems small in comparison to Earth... until you realise it's surface area is greater than all the land on our planet.
2) Fsck your pessimistic bunk! NASA blowing up missions left and right... despite the PR they try to feed the public about being the scientists and all, they specialize in one very specific thing: designing and flying spacecraft and airplanes. Of the spacecraft, they have been hugely more successful with manned than unmanned, because face it... in real life, computers suck! They are just the quick pocket calculators that take care of the details for us.
3. And to paraphrase Machiavelli, it frankly doesn't matter what others think of us unless they can either do something about it or we want something from them.
4. Mars will be a society of scientists and social outcasts, just like America once was... if the next stage of political evolution is like the last, things may get very interesting. Maybe enough so that statements like 3) really will change.
5. Finally, life displaces/mutates/destroys other life... this is the rule of the wild.
We'd probably laugh at seeing this nowadays, but I doubt they'll be any less cautious.
Now what would be really cool is to see the damage the do to our micro-buddies... perhaps a bacterium that eats up virii for lunch?
This is not a troll.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth. With several trillion people, the rates of scientific advancement will be incredible.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I find it extremely curious my response was categorized as a Troll, while the original post about Vegans was deemed "Insightful". I thought Slashdot was better than that. My post may have been pithy, but was much more insightful, and certainly not a Troll.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
That may be true, but why would you hamstring a mission to Mars for what amounts to adhering to a quasi-religious view of animals?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
See this? This is EXACTLY what I was talking about when that person suggested vegetarians and vegans would be the ideal person to sent to Mars.
You don't send people with demonstrated lack of critical thinking ability, you won't have problems like this.
What they need on Mars is a good, Bible-thumping evangelist.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
If we need a long term planet they shold use saturns moon trition it has an atmosphere methane an major part in ours and if we plan on living much longer its safer the sun is a star stars die and when they do they expand and when the sun does it is to expand to earths distance so it is best to keep far away when it burns out
The devil you know or the devil you don't :-) On the other hand, if you choose not to subscribe to that particular interpretation of chaos theory, the potential for positive results to occur exists. While I'm willing to admit that we are far from a perfect people, and that in our drive to explore, we will inevitably make mistakes, I think that it's far too vague to suggest that these will be comparable to those we've already made (horrible or otherwise). Instead, if we assume the potential for human improvement exists, then we can posit that we are less likely to make the same mistakes we've already made. As a counter-argument, though, operation in an entirely foreign environment offers the potential for a wide-range of new problems and mistakes, many of which may be even more damaging than those we've made here. All in all, the only way to learn is by doing, and we can only do our best to remember the lessons that history has taught us to date.
"Be proud to be a fighter" - Martial Arts Adage
Eerie how this plan of NASA's is pretty much identical to the intro to Red Planet. You know, the GOOD Mars movie from last year?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I disagree. I think that the same force that motivated the colonization of North America will motivate the colonization of Mars, namely greed. Also, it would not suprise me if overpopulated countries jumped on the bandwagon to alleviate their problems. Also, a fully terraformed Mars would be a pretty big place to settle, if not another Earth. There's also the principle that we shouldn't have all of our eggs in one basket.
I posted and all I got was this stupid sig
Well, that's the treaty but it won't stand up to the greed and national rivalries of colonization. Let's hope it doesn't have to start WWIII like in Green Mars... If we're paying to colonoize it, why don't we annex it?
I posted and all I got was this stupid sig
The folks at the Smithsonian (Air and Space Museum) which I visited two days ago, have a display which basically questioned our right to even touch Mars after the mess we've made of Earth. The whole place was like that, mixing the wonders of science and achievement with the typical post-modernistic-values-confusion thing.
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
OrangeSquid wrote:
>what happens if the microbes evolve into something that may be harmful?
I worry about stuff like this every time somebody decides to take a core sample from an ancient, far-underground arctic lake, or what have you. Who frigging knows what might pop up once the stuff thaws?
Years ago, I sat in on a conference about the possibilities of terraforming Mars. By bizarre coincidence, guess who happened to be a major presenter on the topic of creating an atmosphere there? Bernie Goetz, who earlier had unfortunately decided to ride the New York subway system (think hard) and wound up a household word.
Go figure.
And on the topic of whether there's already life on the red planet (horrible movie), it just seemed way too weird when NASA held that press conference awhile back. They announced in essence, that they'd finally pretty much established that there was life on Mars. Except that it was long dead, on Earth.
NetCulture
What about corporate claims? Mikro$oft hasn't signed the Outer Space Treaty. If they merge with AOL-Time-Warner the beast-with-four-heads might have the cash to pull off Martian Condos. And if Disney got in the mix... the terror never ends.
L33t cows say m00.
I'm not trying to sound ignorant or anything, but who really cares about martian microbe leftovers? I mean, it might be fine and dandy if they exist, but how much of a positive effect on humanity can their existence possibly exert? I mean, scientists get to study a no-longer-existing form of life indirectly, possibly learn something of interest. I say, damn, humanity has gotten along just fine and well for countless millenia without knowing a damn thing about life forms on mars, so why should we worry about that now? I say if there is any remaining life on mars and it's resistant to human colonization, kill it! Otherwise, leave it be. I'm sure there's much better things to be doing on mars than studying bacteria remnants. (Mining, building, playing chess, sleeping..)
Those books were great! I suggest them to anyone who is truely interested in the colonization of Mars. On a side note I'd like to say that we have no chance of getting to Mars if our government continues to cut the NASA budget. I wish there was some country or society that was setup primarily for people interested in getting to Mars...sounds like a country run by and for scientists and not buerocrats(sp?).
Actually, the first colonies of NA were caused by the landowners in England, i.e. the dukes and other various lords, pushing the peasants off of the land so that sheep could be raised. This was done because the land owners could make more money from wool and other sheep products than they could from the taxes that they forced on the peasants who farmed the land. These peasants and second, third, fourth, etc. sons came over to NA first to get land that they could farm because that is what they new how to do to make a living. The sons came over here because of a little practice called "primo geniture" in which the first born son recieved all of the property of the parents and was supposed to, but not always did, take care of his siblings. It wasn't until a few years later did religion come into the picture.
What would be quicker - spend a few hundred kabillion dollars modify an entire planets weather system, and wait a thousand or so years for it to green out, or spend a few billions of dollars on genetic research engineering and just make bodies better suited to that atmosphere and climate?
...
I mean, for as long as we're being sci-fi about all this, don't forget that the hothouse project isn't the only proposal on the table
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
If you want to take a look at an unusual bit of the history of Colonial North America, check out the history of Acadia/Nova Scotia, in which the British essentially attack French settlers for the audacity of having "gone native" and befriending the aboriginal people.
You know? NASA is an amazing organisation:
It blows up Viking biology missions,
it "forgets" to proceed the biological searches for more than 25 years,
it blows up several exobiology experiments,
it ignores tons of evidence on late presence of water in Mars,
it makes a silly sub-scientific showdown about Life in Mars and blows up the whole thing,
it blows up several Mars missions, experiments and projects.
And now talks about the "colonisation" of Mars? By Earth biota? So we are back to 1964 and some jerks at JPL, who, on the base of a few photos from Mariner 4, cried over the world that Mars is dead and our duty is to colonise that damn piece of dirt over there. Very scientific from the part of NASA. We still don't know if there is or was Life in Mars. However we are ready, right now, to blow up the whole planet with another stupid experiment even before we get sure of this. More than 35 years passed and NASA is still in the same level of intelligence.
Hope that intelligent aliens are really quite far away from us and don't see these "adventures". This disregarding and selfish view of other worlds would surely give them a good opinion about our culture...
Basically there has to be a better way of escaping the Earths atmosphere surely. A lot of people think that the only reason that NASA persists with shuttles and rockets is because it is good for the american aerospace industry and the american airforce.
What about giant elevator like you see in sci-fi films. Let's face it, anything that doesn't involve sitting on top of several tons of rocket fuel would do.
The problem is that chemical rockets are the only practical option we have for getting into space at all, for the next several decades at the *very* least.
The reason: Thrust. We have other drives in production, finally, but none of them are *anywhere* close to being able to produce thrust above one gravity, and they aren't going to any time soon - they're high efficiency drives designed for long-haul propulsion of craft that are already in space.
What other options do we have? The NERVA drive? Only if we want to spray radioactive exhaust everywhere. Fusion? Not for another few decades, and almost certainly not at one gravity (plasma pressure won't be high enough in any magnetic field we can produce, and inertial schemes aren't very practical as thrusters). Ion drives and so forth are low-thrust drives - completely useless for ground-to-orbit, however useful they may be out in space.
Laser launching? You can only use the atmosphere as reaction mass for the first few tens of kilometres. This gives accelerations that are far too high for human passengers, even if the craft and ground-station could handle the required laser intensity. Carry your own reaction mass? You can't heat it much hotter than conventional rocket fuel without destroying your rocket nozzles, which means your cargo to ship weight ratio will be similar to that of chemical rockets.
As a cargo lifter, this *might* be practical.
A railgun? Again, unless it's a cargo lifter, it'll have to be hundreds or thousands of kilometres long, and the projectile will vapourize on contact with the atmosphere (rockets don't get up to orbital velocity until they're out of most of the atmosphere).
A space elevator? Maybe in a few decades when we have the required materials, but certainly not any time soon. Nothing we're even close to producing in quantity will cut it, though we have glimmers of interesting materials in the lab.
In short, chemical rockets persist because they're simply the best tool we have for the job.
As far as bringing water to mars is concerned, it would cost *far* less to transport it from the asteroid belt. Earth's gravity well is *very* deep, and we have to use inefficient high-thrust rockets to get out of it. Ocean level problems can be solved by paying more attention to the composition of our atmosphere (tailoring greenhouse effect and cloud-forming to suit our needs).
well, since today (according to the learning kingdom) is the anniversary of the "Outer Space treaty" let me quote them: Nearly a decade after the USSR launched the first Sputnik into orbit around the earth and just two and a half years before the US landed the first men on the moon, the Outer Space Treaty was signed. Modeled on the Antarctic Treaty, it sought to set the terms for the exploration and exploitation of a newly opened territory. In addition to outlawing any exclusive national claims to extraterrestrial regions, it limited the use of the moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes. It prohibited placing nuclear or other mass-destruction weapons in orbit, on the moon or other celestial body, or on any sort of space station. The treaty also outlawed using the outer space environment for any form of weapons testing. Signed by the U.S., USSR, and Great Britain (which at that time still planned a space program), the Outer Space Treaty was a major step in arms control. After the treaty came into effect, the U.S. and the USSR began to collaborate in space enterprises, including jointly manned missions. History and full text of the Outer Space Treaty: link
------ Poo-tee-weet?
1 and 2 are reasonable points, but I don't think they're much to worry about. There's no way a project like this can get started before there has been people on Mars for decades. The planet will be well explored before we start, and if there's life or any other things worth preserving, that can be figured out in good time.
Point 3 is nonsense. There is no connection between the two, other than cheap rhetoric. It's like saying I shouldn't see that movie until I've lost 5 pounds.
And you don't seem to consider the good in making a hellhole into a possibly very nice home for billions of people and other life forms. Does that mean nothing to you?
A lot of people are confused by the word "own". If A owns X, it really just means that A is the one who gets to decide what to do with X.
Keeping this in mind, statements like "we don't own this planet" turn out to be meaningless rhetoric.
The moon would also make an excellent forward base for further colonization & exploration missions. With 1/6 earth gravity, ships launched from the moon (or lunar orbit) would be able to devote FAR more of their mass to payload and less on fuel.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Arg, why are people always thinking too fast? We should first colonize the deep ocean, then a meteor, then the moon, then Mars, then the sun. We can then send off intergalactic units to conquer the universe!
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
Why is this not mentioned? Do the authors want to cloud the public's mind with talk of "ecosystems" and "terraforming," just so we won't ask about the brave men and women who will fight and die on Mars to secure territory for us to colonize?
If anyone from NASA is reading this, you have to realize that the public is not stupid. We know what is entailed in colonizing a new planet. You need to start thinking about something closer to full disclosure, please.
:eof
The submittor also expressed some concerns about how humans handling of the Earth - and whether we'll repeat the same problems on other planets
Not a chance. Unless our society grows up, accepts responsibility for its actions and sets our priorities straight there is little chance we'll 'do this to Mars.'
Our present culture is very capable of making the trip to Mars - but we dont care enough to do it. By the same token, we will never make the attempt to TerraForm Mars unless we've wisened up about the way we treat Terra. One (our growth) will come before any attempt to TerraForm Mars.
. Or have we already become that extreme of a disposible society that we can throw away an entire planet
That is a very telling and terrible prospect - I had visions of humanity evolving into a 'culture of aliens who move from planet to planet sucking up its life and leaving it for dead' that we've all read in various stories... ouch what a terrible thought.
Consider this, the best people suited for traveling to Mars are vegetarians and vegans. They are the most conditioned to not eating (craving) meat and if they eat properly and exercise are in excellent physical condition.
Why does not eating meat come into play? Logistically, when NASA does send the first groups of people to colonize Mars, without new innovations in space travel, sending livestock to Mars is too expensive and plain goofy. And the huge supply of frozen hamburgers will run out without constant supplies sent from Earth. ;-)
The cheapest and most effective solution is to simply grow the food there. Live off the land. Water seems to be available and nearly everything necessary for the human body can be gotten from plants. Except vitamin B12. But vitamin suppliments will take care of that. =)
Hey NASA, i'm ready for Mars!
This touches somewhat on my topic here, but I still don't agree with you. There is a big difference between colonizing Mars and colonizing Africa, and it's a bit sad if we would let the mistakes of one prevent the other.
The difference?
There are no humans on mars.
That means no presumable victims and no previous owners of the land. Nonetheless I think an international effort would be much more positive than the colonization of Mars by one single nation. If we don't go in there together now, we will have serious fights over the land later on.
Will code a sig generator for food
I realize it's a somewhat different problem. But if we can introduce forests in the Sahara we will not only improve the life conditions of millions, perhaps even the whole African continent, we will also learn a great deal on how to do the same things on Mars.
I bet planting vegetation in the Sahara would be a lot cheaper than sending space-ships to Mars, but not as glorious and 'american'.
Will code a sig generator for food
Why don't you sell your computer and donate the cash (or at least your savings on electricity) to research efforts to cure cancer or AIDS?
Your computer expands your personal capabilities; a Mars colony will expand humanity's capabilities.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
Except that corporations are creatures of national laws. And the Outer Space Treaty treats all launches from the territory of any party to the treaty as if they were launched by the party.
e Warner running around.
And no company is sufficiently wealthy or powerful enough to be autonomous from its shareholders and its creditors and the U.S. government and the EU to pull it off, even if you had an AOL-Boeing-Exxon-GE-GM-Microsoft-Mobil-Nissan-Tim
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
Helium-3 and gravity.
A Martian agricultural colony could support both lunar and gas giant mining of Helium-3 with food for a lower marginal cost than any other option (except maybe O'Neil colonies). And helium-3 fusion is power without radioactive waste, without greehouse gasses and/or particulate matter, without the land use issues of Earth-based solar and wind and hydroelectric...
Sure, such a colony would first be closed greehouses and habitats. But if their role in the energy trade made them wealthy enough, they'd probably themselves start work on terraforming Mars.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
I know that it would be theoretically possible to colonize Mars and turn it into a Earth-like planet. The problem is not techonology but one if time and money. The biggest backers of this so called project would be the big international Space communities like the US, Russia, England, etc.. I do not think that coutries will be willing to spend trillions (guess) to colonize another planet when they can spend that money here to improve things.
Time will be another factor, It would take a long time for Mars to even start showing signs that our efforts are working. It would be even longer before people would be able to live there and even then not many (
Ok Enough bad talking. I REALLY do hope this happens and I hope that the people who ever is in charge of this project once it gets under way really think about how they will do this, the last thing we need is to have a Standard/Metric calculation mismatch and turn Mars into Waterworld!
Later
Lord Arathres
stainless steel
as geologically ephemeral inhabitants of the earth we do not own this planet,
Define 'own'.
I'm not nitpicking here, I'm pointing a very common flaw in reasoning. This flaw is very similar to the one which leads some people to believe in the existance of gods.
Let me explain. 'property' and 'meaning' are human symbols, which have a signification, in a communication between human beings. It is a built-in thought process for us, communicating beings, to look for 'meanings' in things. A word has a meaning. Pictures have meaning, such as an arrow. An open or a closed door have a meaning ... because someone wrote / drew / opened / closed them.
Primitives found meanings in volcanic eruptions, eclipses, and various natural events. This is part of what is called 'animism', attributing meanings and intent in natural intent. Religiosity is an extrapolation of this tendency to attribute meanings to everything in the world.
When you look at things this way, your usage of the word 'owning' in this context, where there is no human being, no human communication involved, is inappropriate. Which is why it seems to have a negative connotation. Of course, nobody 'own' this planet, or another, or the sun or the moon, because 'owning' at this scale does'nt mean anything ... 'property' exists only as long as enough people believe it and act accordingly.
The church used to own most of the land in my country two centuries ago. Suddenly, the people decided it that they did'nt. So they didn't anymore.
(This might sound offtopic, but I hope people will get my point).
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Yes, the title of this post is intentionally inflammatory. Sure there is an environment on Mars, but as far as we know there's no biosphere and we will know for sure long before these methods become feasible. And even if there are some microbes lurking in underground hot springs - why exactly should I care? I care about people and the continued existence of the human race. Ok, so I'm a homo sapiens chauvinist. Don't expect me to apologize for that.
Unless people suddenly stop reproducing and/or decide it's OK to kill billions of people we will run out of resources here on Earth. The first option doesn't seem likely and the other... well, it's all too likely but I don't WANT it to happen.
The only other course for sustaining this exponential growth is to use the resources of outer space and do it quickly and without too much sentiments. We need do be very careful before doing anything to Mars, but not because we need to preserve it in it's current state - just because we won't have a second chance. It's the best candidate for settlement and we don't want to screw up.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Here.
It's a shame we're almost no closer to colonizing extraterrestrial bodies than we were 30 years ago. The far-future plans NASA periodically comes up with are a lot more interesting than the actual missions they like to carry out...
--
Anyway, I have legitimate concerns as well over whether this is a Good Thing. I have no doubt that NASA scientists could do it if given enough time, but then what?
Will it be International territory like Antarctica, or will the U.S. just annex the whole damn thing? Nothing escapes Politics, and if the US ends up funding most of it you can bet the US Polititians will behave like they own the place.
One things for sure - once they find something deep witin Mars that worth mining or drilling for, they'll forget all the environmental concerns and implement a Scorched Earth (Scorched Mars?) Strategy sooner than you can say "Martian Oilman".
We gave Mars that nice environment, and we can take it away...
The statement is not correct. One should say "translucid" instead of "transparent". The fact is that light may reach deeps up to a few millimeters in many rocks. On a desert this is quite important for survival of microorganisms. On Antarctica dry valleys, the most Mars-like environment on Earth, several organisms manage to fight cold, dryness and the higher level of UV radiation of these places, by living at these deeps inside rocks. It is exactly this point that puts into question the idea of a "sterile Mars". Yes, Antarctica is much more benign than Mars but if liquens, algae and bacteria manage to survive this way, then it is theoretically possible that the same could happen in Mars.
In Viking mission times, based on these facts, a group of scientists, one of them Carl Sagan, simulated in lab the Mars environment and discovered a few bacteria that can survive much the same way we see in Antarctica. So the question of very little green Martians cannot be put away until now. Some may counterweight this fact with Viking experiments. But we know now that part of them were flawed or suspect of being so.
Many people talk about the fact that Viking showed no organics in Mars. Curiously the Vikings suggested that Mars possess less organics than the Moon. And this is a nonsense somehow. Mars is much closer to the Asteroid Belt and Jupiter than us. So, in its History it should have suffered more impacts than us. Not only from asteroids but also from comets. How can Mars be more "inorganic" than the Moon? Moon surface receives a lot more radiation and still we got minimal traces of organic compounds. So there is some reason to rise a few serious questions about the reliability of Viking experiments.
So before talking about "colonosations" think: have we exhausted all chances to find Life in Mars?
Make no mistake - we can influx it with Nuclear waste, chemicals, pollutants of all stripes and build whatever the hell we want to there. It doesn't make a whit of difference to anyone. No life = No environment = Nothing we need to worry about preserving.
As for point 3, I think you are jumping to conclusions somewhat. Nobody is suggesting that we throw away the Earth - the simple fact is that the Earth we be the home to the vast, vast majority of Mankind for a long time. Just consider Mars a backup. If anything goes wrong here, then our species will live onward somewhere else. It greatly increases our species chances of survival in the long term to occupy two planets, and not just one. The dinosaurs could have done with a similar backup, but they didn't have one, and look what happened to them.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
From the second link: (the "introducing microbes" one)
Above: In many desert environments, Chroococcidiopsis grows on the undersides of transparent rocks, just below the surface.
I've driven through desert areas several times, and I haven't seen any "transparent rocks."
Oh...
Wait...
Never mind.
--Shoeboy
We have scarcely had the chance to properly explore the Martian environment and we're already talking about wreaking havoc on an unexplored ecosystem. Before we unleash the greenhouse effect on a planet we should do a few things first.
1) Understand just what we're doing. We can't even agree if the greenhouse effect is really happening, let alone what factors are significantly contributing to it. We need to know the effects of our actions before we stumbly blindly forwardwith this plan.
2) Properly explore the planet before erasing vast parts or its geological history. I'm reminded of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, which when built in the early 1960s led to flooding that buried countless archeological sites. The 3 Gorges Dam in China is another example. If there is any fossil evidence of life on Mars we may be losing it forever by terraforming the planet.
3) Finally, try fixing our own planet before we undertake the extremely expensive task of relocating to another planet. Now I'm an advocate of the space program, but rather than screw up another planet ecologically, we should fix our own planet first. Or have we already become that extreme of a disposible society that we can throw away an entire planet?
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...