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Terraform Humans First, Then Mars?
An anonymous reader writes "Related to the future of Mars, NASA released the transcript of an expert panel which debated terraforming the red planet. Planetary scientists including NASA's Planetary Protection Officer, John Rummel, and science fiction writers (Kim Robinson, Arthur C. Clarke, and Greg Bear) chimed in. When asked if Mars should be transformed to a place where humans could walk without life support suits ("naked"), Sir Clarke responded, "Perhaps we should ask the Martians first." Can it be done quickly-- or at all? Is terraforming ethical? If humans colonize, are the colonists on a one-way trip akin to exile?" Read on for a bit more.
"A consensus seemed to be that like waking a sleeping giant, planet building seems possible if oxygen is not a requirement and some microbial life is dormant underground. But the question of making a planet suitable for plants alone seems to span tens of thousands of years. The remaining science fiction notion was terraforming humans, instead of planets, and making us survive on what is now a very alien world."
If we're going to make it a place where people walk around naked, we're going to need two new websites. One where we can vote who to send to Mars ... and a second with up-to-the-minute webcams from the red planet.
I already have a large device called "Genesis" that can terraform a planet in mere days.
1. Magnosphere
2. Atmosphere
3. h2o
4. ???
5 Profit
The idea of 'terraforming humans' makes me think of some scientist dragging a rake over my face. My point is that it sounds like that would hurt, and I don't think many people will support scientific experiments on human beings that allow us to breath Martian air no matter how benign they are. And besides, what's ten thousand years? Those plants will be done in no time!
I regularly report MSN spam to the Hotmail admins.
...assuming "teraform" means to allow us all to walk around naked.
The sure would change trips to the beach. "Hey Jim, check out that naked chick over there. Man, she would look hot in a bikini!"
Wait wait! Let's finish the job here first. Once we're done Venusforming Earth, we can Terraform Mars.
I'm sure we can figure out some capitalist-distributed scheme that Wall Street loves while changing the atmosphere of Mars as we've done here (deforestation, carbon-based energy industry, too many cow farts, etc.). Of course, the real question is how long will the Mars atmosphere be breathable by "naked" humans before it's unbreathable again thanks to the top-selling 2050 Ford Evacuate super-SUV......
We cover the planet with the dirtiest factories we can imagine churning out CO2 and other delightful pollutants to create the greenhouse effect and intersperced with them a dense forest that converts the CO2 into oxygen. Wait 40,000 years. Convert factories into family fun centers and pave over troublesome forests and now we're ready for humans.
It's called breeding.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
"We're men. We have rockets. We have Saran-Wrap.... FIX IT!" --Lewis Black
When our new Hyper Intelligent Sulphur Breathing Galactic Sprout overlords arrive here to do a spot of terraforming cos they think we are just strange stupid organisms, I vote we dont let Chess_the_cat handle the negotiations
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
At last a profitable plan!
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Exactly true about Sci-fi writers!
"At that point, the big problem with Mars is the lack of a strong magnetic field, which makes it difficult to retain water vapor in the martian atmopshere. This is a problem now but it gets worse as the level of solar radiation striking Mars goes up."
More info for those who are wondering: Mars had water from about 3.9 to 3.0 billion years ago (which was recently confirmed by MER-A, MER-B, and Mars Express). At about 3.0 billion years ago Mars' magnetic field collapsed (generally attributed to the faster cooling rate of a smaller planet like Mars compared to the Earth--while Mars is theoretically differentiated, the key temperatures and pressures for the melting point of iron in the core which is required for a magnetic dynamo have slid towards solid). The collapse allowed the solar wind to strip the atmosphere of gases which is why it now only is about 1% of the pressure of our atmosphere.
Neither did southern California. You need to have a little more faith in the ingenuity of unabashed greed.
Why waste time trying to smash hundreds of puny asteroids into Mars in order to terraform it? Clearly it would be much easier to simply smash the Earth into the red planet. The Earth is bigger than all of those asteroids combined, so as you can imagine, the whole process would be quite speedy. It also solves the problem of transporting humans to Mars, and would result in much better ping times when playing interplanetary CS.
Oh never mind.
Don't these guys know that we are the reproductive system of the earth? I'm SERIOUS here, think about it! We are how the whole earth's eco system gets transported to other planets. Why did we evolve to where we are today anyway? You think Humans showing up on the earth was some kind of horrible evolutionary accident? NO.. It just part of the natural process of planets developing intelligent life forms and then those lifeforms reproducing the planet's eco-system on other worlds. We are like the seeds of the earth flower getting blown out into outer space via space ships with the DNA and specimens of earth life forms. If we Terraform mars we will see the first real example of a planet re-producing itself!
So, let just do it! C'mon - it'll be fun!
But... it'd be easier to do on the Moon and the manufactured products would be closer to Earth. Plus the Moon is stone cold dead and it's got more sunlight for solar energy (if you're into that tree-hugging hippy crap) to run your factories (just burning the organic molecules is a bit of a waste). And we'd be able to see the show without telescopes.
So, everybody's in agreement then - we blow up the Moon.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Send a ark full of fishing worms to Mars. The fish will come. If the water doesn't come up to greet the fish it will be okay. The evolution thing will kick in and pretty soon the fish will breathe, walk, and call us on the phone. Once that is done they will hopefully institute my plan instead of Social Security. www.newpath4.com/marriage.htm . These new evolved beings will be much smarter than us "firsties". They'll build my steam-nitrogen engine and not pollute their planet (www.newpath4.com/steamedheatengine.html) plus they'll be highly intelligent enough to retain some of their gills so their lungs will be much stronger than ours (www.newpath4.com/newpath_newlife.html). We could have a contest to decide what to call them. Perhaps Marfish people; but of course they wouldn't like us calling them names and our first interstellar war would begin. They would design a weapon that would channel solar flare energy, direct it into a bean aimed at us oops beam. Our global warming would escalate out of control, the Marfish raising the ocean level high enough to transform the Earth into a true Marfish Water Planet Paradise (www.newpath4.com/AAINDEX/paget6.htm). End of story. Actually end of our story and beginning of theirs! But hey, so what? All hail Survival of the Fittest and Domination of the Strongest!
Sorry, my bad.
I have been scuba diving in mercury recently so you'll understand my simple mistake.