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.

Comments

hmm...

[Shoeboy]

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

Just what we need.

[aidoneus]

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?