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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.
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.
Actually, to increase the greenhouse effect on Mars would require a lot of water. On Earth, water vapor is the major greenhouse gas and the same would probably be true on a terraformed Mars. The obvious method is to crash icy asteroids/comets into Mars. Probably have to scatter several carbon-rich asteroids around to increase the available carbon, also. That will be messy and noisy, as with most biology. Fortunately most of that can be done at the start of the process, and maintenance doesn't have to be so dramatic (ie, put ice in orbit and drop small pieces of it -- overly time consuming for huge quantity needed to start the process).
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...
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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...