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Scientists Propose 'National Parks' On Mars
colonist writes "Microbiologist Charles Cockell and astrobiologist Gerda Horneck want to turn seven areas on Mars into 'national parks', conserved in their pristine state. 'It is the right of every person to stand and stare across the beautiful barrenness and desolation of the Martian surface without having to endure the eyesore of pieces of crashed spacecraft scattered across the landscape,' they write. Cockell is not against colonization, though. He says that setting aside some areas for conservation would free up the rest of the planet for settlement."
Damn that Saxifrage Russell and his Greens!
davejenkins.com |
Crash spaceship sites should be designated 'national historal parks'.
As if we were planning on paving the whole planet as soon as we landed.
pheww, I was worried it was gonna be a mob scene, but now I can rest easy, knowing that even after I get there, I can still go camping in the wilderness areas...
WTF IS THE POINT OF THIS!
get there first, make exisistence possible, wait until you reach a population of >50- then worry about running out of pristine areas.....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
How about we GET there first, then colonize, then let all the pussy treehuggers whine about it?
which rock shall the image of George Bush's face be carved into?
shouldn't we go there first???
Someone is thinking ahead. For once. Refreshing to see.
There are, in fact, already treaties regarding space colonization. Just because it's not possible -yet- doesn't mean we should wait until it starts happening to consider how we want it to go.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Until we can work out the value of an area (in terms of scientific benefits, mining, agriculture, etc...) we shouldn't go marking it off-limits.
Ideally these parks would have no value other than for eye candy.
Well, that would certainly put a crimp in any anyone's terra-forming plans...
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
Well, the good thing is that after this we'll know exactly the seven areas the conspiracy lovers will tell us there are signs of ancient civilizations, martian colonies or other such stuff.
Charles Cockell, of the British Antarctic Survey, works on microbes growing in the extreme polar conditions. If you have an access to Nature, check his latest paper treating of "Ecology: widespread colonization by polar hypoliths". There's a summary available from BioEd Online for those (prolly 99% of the crowd here) who can't access Nature.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
Na they should be designated 'international historical parks' since any colonization on Mars would probably be by a multinational group.
It's an interesting dilemma. The only really good way to colonize Mars involves terraforming it. But the only way to preserve parts of the Martian surface precludes terraforming it. I guess you could build giant Martidomes to preserve the ancient landscape, but that seems like a lot of expense just to protect part of the planet from terraforming.
The question is - which makes more sense economically? Terraforming the entire planet, refusing to colonize it altogether, or building biodomes all over its surface? Right now, the third option is pretty much out of the question, so we have a long-term decision to make about whether Mars is more valuable as the red planet, or as a green one.
I wonder if the authors have read Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" (and Green and Blue...) He obviously thought a lot about the science involved in colonization, and saving areas of Mars "in their pristine state" won't be easy, if he got much of his analysis right. Especially if any of these areas are on the equator (the falling space elevator episode)
He should take solace in knowing that the massive amounts of radiation hitting the planet due to it having no atmosphere to speak of would likely burn out the eyes of the tourist.
What's the point of National Parks that no one can visit? How 'bout we wait until actually colonize Mars before we start building there. Sometimes I wonder about these so-called scientists. If they're spending time on things like this, how smart could they be?
These earth-like ideas of conservation don't map onto Mars and other planets *yet*. Roping off an area of Mars where the ships should not land!?! We're just starting to explore it. We don't yet know which areas are best to conserve and which are best to settle upon. Given that settlement could be an awfully boring and restrictive lifestyle, I'm sure that a lot will be conserved because of the harshness of the environment. Humans will have a hard-enough time preserving themselves in the Mars environment at first. I'm sure NASA's going to blow up a $25 mil. ship (or whatever amount of $) when they see it's accidentally heading for a conserved piece of land. I think these people's efforts would (in the meantime) be better applied here on earth. It's a novel idea for Mars but way too early. Let's not legislate Mars quite yet.
people have to find something to do with their time.
You start up National Parks and the bears show up to beg and go through the trash.
April Fool's day semiannual now? No, wait, that doesn't work out right either.
I think someone is conceptualizing Mars wrong. It's a whole PLANET. It costs billions of dollars to send a single probe. We aren't going to be littering it any time soon, nor are we going to land humans on it any time soon.
What we should worry about is not contaminating it with terrestrial microorganisms.
How can you have a national park without a nation?
Wouldn't the designation of 'parks' on Mars best be left up to the people settling there? Like, we think we know a little bit about what's there, but really we don't know much of anything. Mapping from space, and a few square miles of exploration doesn't mean we know squat about Mars.
:)
For example, what if we find a huge system of underground caves, like exist all over the Earth. Maybe they're too close to the surface to even put a city. That would be a better choice, rather than marking 1000 square miles saying "This is park."
Not that it really matters. We haven't sent person #1 there yet, much less colonists. Really, the rules will be established by whoever gets there first, and then be redefined by whoever takes power there first. If a country puts a big freakin' space gun on Mars, and starts shooting down other countries landers, that leaves that country in control to say what a park is. Or more like, if the colonists decide that they're independant (with the big freakin' space gun to prove it), they get to declare their parks.
That's what the U.S. did. They told England, "This is ours". It doesn't matter what they declared as what before the colonists came over, it's all been changed since then. The only big differences are the distance, and the space gun.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I'm not certain if current space treaties actually deal with colonization, but treaties regulating the currently impossible are always easy to support. These treaties will be ignored/rewritten when space colonization becomes a practical reality. And, as always, no entity has the means and authority to enforce these treaties.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Then where will all the beowulfs go?
So, America owns Mars now, right?
A national park must be owned by a nation... Solar park maybe?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
How about we actually get there and figure out what is there first. We could doom any colonization effort by declaring areas off limits that have resources we will need or want. Can see it now, from here we say leave these areas alone and unexplored. We find out after the colony dies that those areas contain most of the water and other resources needed by a colony. But no, we can't touch them because they are declared national parks.
Face it people, if there was not life on Mars before there is a very high probability that there is life there now. As careful as we try to be keeping the various probes clean before launching them there will be a varity of microbes, bacteria, and viruses that hitched a ride on the probes and probably survived both the trip and reentry. So colonization has begun on the microbial level at least.
Lets get there first and find out what is really there then we can set aside areas as national parks.
People throw around the concepts of 'rights' too easily. What religious or natural philosophy would include property rights on another planet? Such a bloated sense of importance and entitlement..
They think it's so wonderful, let's send them there immediately. I'll even pack them a picnic basket.
True.
Perhaps we could just ask him to go on ahead of us and police the "No dumping" area?
Isn't it kind of early for the enviromentalists to get their panties in a bunch? I'm all for conservation, but Mars is a big place. It's not like theres any trees to log or birds to hunt.
It's not April 1st.
Dog is my co-pilot.
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The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) has been doing annual studies of major computer companies and evaluating how well they support the environment. All the Korean and Chinese companies (including companies based in Taiwan province) had a failing grade in the studies.
Who gets to pick the nation? I assume that it refers to American, but I wonder how the rest of the world would like that idea. Then again, plant the flag, let them all head to Mars and try to take the land from us. You'll get my Mars when you pry it from my cold, dead, oxygen deprived fingers.
I want to be a park ranger!
Will there be pic-a-nik baskets in the parkon Mars ?
If you don't understand anything I post, please accept that I ate paste as a small boy...
exploitation and claim-staking, which might encourage these nations to sign up to the system."
HUH?
Maybe a little effort in the direction of a planetary space race rather than the nationalism we have now. Sure, we can still race, but the race and national pride could be in development of components of exploration, mining, nuclear fusion, etc. rather than a race for total planetary domination.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Wow, China-bashing for nerds is like France-bashing for rednecks.
read Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. People exploiting Mars isn't as far-out as you guys think.
This is very interesting. When most of us think of conservation, do we think of conserving geography itself, or the life that lives on top of and within it? Presuming there is no life on mars, is there anything to actually conserve? Curious as to how others feel.
Does the Doom III ad have anything to do with the article, or is that just a coincidence?
It is the right of every person to stand and stare across the beautiful barrenness and desolation of the Martian surface
Cool, so who's paying for my ticket? It IS my right to go there, after all...
You can't take the sky from me...
'National Parks' ..
Who's nation though?
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Which nation exactly owns Mars?
Bunch of pussy iron oxide huggers.
Some of the probes went *SPLAT* instead of landing safely :)
-- Gone Crazy, Back Later
Remember Mars may be half the diameter of your Earth, but with no water, the land surface area is like 4x as large as Earth.
If Earthlings crashed a spaceship PER DAY there, it would take you 580,000+ years before there was one wrecked spaceship per SQUARE MILE of surface area, OK?
We recommend you do not waste any tax dollars on these silly initives, and as we have said before, two things - 1) focus on nuclear fusion technology instead, and 2) stay clear of Europa.
Thou shalt setteth off parts of Red Planet as
areas of conservationeth. Duh! Somebody needs to
take a religion course.
(Sorry if my formatting is off, I'm using Lynx)
I had so many unwanted daemons on my machine, I had to hire a priest to cast them all out.
OK, so what if the tree-huggers do convince the government to mark off a bunch of Mars as a "Planetary Park". Will the Chinese respect the park boundries? India? Private organizations that say "Try and stop me- if you can get a ship over here"??
Sounds more like warm & fuzzy legislation that has no relationship to reality.
-MrLogic
Then why don't you defend China?
I disagree.
...We'll strip-mine the other planets later.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
...on the sun.
In related news, the Bush administration today announced that they would start handing out permits for logging and oil drilling in Martian national parks...
Never mind Mars.
The US *is currently* building a road in the Antarctic from their scientific base on the edge of the region too the Pole.
They are *mining snow to fill in crevases*.
The Man on Mars should be worried...
Brown said phase one of the project -- filling huge crevasses with ice on the crevasse fields 70 kilometers (40 miles) south of McMurdo station -- has already been completed.
Sir Edmund Hilary (the first man to climb Everest)has just walked part of it, and needless to say, has slammed the initiative.
http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/news
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
those are Valles Marineris and Hellas Planitia
- first, because canyons provide a very good place for underground houses - you have just a window on the side of a canyon
- second, because Hellas is the lowest place on whole planet, which results in twice the atmospheric pressure (Mars has 6hPa on average): 14 hPa. Pressure has big influence on water phase - in Hellas you would expect water to be in liquid phase, while everywhere on Mars you expect water to constantly dwiddle between gaz and solid phase (tri-point place on phase diagram). Liquid water is a good argument to put human settlements in Hellas.
I know that stuff because my wife makes a PhD about base on Mars.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I have a funny feeling that any laws made here on earth about mars will quickly be thrown out the window by those who settle mars.....
stendec@gmail.com
http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/news
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Hahaha! Oh wait, they're serious.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
Nice article. I for one am happy that this subject has been broached now as it is important. Might be a good idea for all those interested to read KSR's Mars Trilogy and the Clayborne-Russell arguments to get a real insight into the issues that (might probably) arise and be at stake.
;)
That said, I'd still love to see a human presence on Mars, as long as I'm one of em...
I'd rather see 'national parks' on uranus first.
Thank you, thank you.
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Nice, but first let's see where we plan the reservations for the natives.
That would nix any terraforming efforts we might like to employ in the future.
The Martians will have to get busy lobbying if they want to keep Mars red.
And besides, I haven't really had much luck aiming the spacecraft I've so far crashed into Mars.
Closer to home, imagine if we colonised the moon at some point in the future - would you send crews out to pick up the man-made "litter" left behind by, say, the Apollo 9 mission, or would you keep it as a[n] [inter]national monument to a piece of human history?
It'd be like trashing the Mayflower or something because it had served it's purpose and was cluttering up the landscape.
I say, the spacecraft and probes that land on Mars before the place was colonised would have historical significance.
I guess the folks proposing the conservation areas are just thinking a few dozen centuries ahead (a more power to them for trying to prevent a potential problem).
does anybody else smell the commercialism?;/
...except for the major differences in the fact that the martian surface was bearable and people were able to live on it with no problems what-so-ever in his collection of short stories. (IMHO) i think Bradbury was really trying to explain what he felt Mars was going to be like in the future if everything stayed the same; as shown in one of his stories about the negroes going on the rocket, obviously there isnt the same discrimination today. Exploitation of Mars comes after exaustion of resources on Mars, so your almost on the money, but not quite there...
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
But I have just one question for these people that the article didn't really address....
What's there on Mars in the first to conserve? Any water or life it may have had at one time seems to have long-since vacated. They talk about an "environmental issue", but what's in that environment that actually deserves that sort of protection? It seems to me that it makes about as much sense to set up a conservation park on mars as it does to sell air-conditioners to people residing in Antarctica.
As for the issue of microbial life and why that should be preserved, let's consider why conservationalism might be a good thing to begin with on Earth. Here, it's a big deal because how we treat the environment affects the habitability of this planet for ourselves, but Mars' environment is wholly uninhabitable, and unless we're planning on teraforming the sucker, it always will be, so there's no "damage" that we can do that will in any way impact us.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I don't think the authors have a reasonable appreciation of the size of plannets or explorational navigation. The chances are that a human eye would not be able to see "the eyesore of pieces of crashed spacecraft" when they "stare across the beautiful barrenness and desolation of the Martian surface." Planets are big places and well meaning exploration craft are both expensive and tiny. Also, a space craft that is "crashing" has little choice of where it is putting itself down.
It would be stupid to the point of criminality to ignorantly place the burdens on future generations that this proposed "National Parks" could generate. How, pray tell, are we to learn what's useful under that barren surface if we can't land space craft on it? How stupid would it be if future colonists had to modify flight plans around areas that people looking though telescopes thought were beautiful? No, we need to learn what we can now and get there. It won't be too hard for people there to clean up real eyesores.
Mars will no more ruined by the remains of exploratory vehicles than the Grand Canyon is by one or two wrecked cars. If they are even visible, you can pick them up without much trouble.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"It is the right of every person to stand and stare across the beautiful barrenness and desolation of the Martian surface
Any serious attempt to colonize Mars will include serious attempts to thicken, warm, and humidify the atmosphere, probably opening underground aquifers or mining the water ice cap. Once you introduce planetary climate change, much of that "beautiful barrenness and desolation" is going to change whether people visit it or not. It's possible that Olympus Mons, which for practical purposes sticks out of the atmosphere, might survive such changes, but the rest of the Martian surface? Not likely.I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
Do not put off for tomorrow what can be done today.
Though moderated as funny, you're more +4 wry.
It isn't that we're planning on paving the whole planet, it's that the planet doesn't have forests and such.
The result is that if you land one large spaceship it's visible a very, very, very long way.
The whiter a piece of paper is, the more you notice a single mark on it. The same is true of Mars. By the time there's significant colonization any talk of untouched wilderness will be pointless. It isn't like Yellowstone where you can find yourself a fairly tiny little nook in the forest and pretend there isn't a highway a half mile back.
The required size for an effective park on Mars is just too large for it to be practical, which is rather the opposite of your "joke".
This might be the ultimate jumping of the gun, but as soon as we are able to colonize we should pass these laws immediately.
Do not under-estimate the massive destructive power of our "every day lives."
We will eventually live on other planets. Let's be certain we don't destroy them like we have our own.
Shane
The point of this is to cordon off areas of Mars where McDonalds can't put billboards.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
...they stole all of the pic-a-nic baskets!
He says that setting aside some areas for conservation would free up the rest of the planet for settlement.
And not setting aside any areas for conservation would free up the whole planet for settlement. Might as well let the folks living there decide what is worth preserving, otherwise it would be like the US deciding where Canada should have its national parks or vice versa.
Only the English love barren lifeless deserts and would want to preserve them in their pristine state.
Most people that live near or on a desert would rather change them into an oasis (or in this case terraform). Try living in, or travelling on one - it looses a great deal of it's romance very quickly.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
For a second the headline made me think last night's blackout might have been 25 yrs long!
Space parks means... SPACE RANGERS!!! "Hey Chuck, the tourists on trail three just ran out of oxygen. Can you spacelift them a few tanks with the Mars hopper?" "All Rangers, a bunch of tourists are being attacked by native demons. Make sure to bring your BFGs! *click* Sigh, what part of the 'FEED THE DEMONS AND THEY WILL EAT YOUR SOUL' do they not understand?"
read the bunni comic
I guess the British Beagle landers will have to find a new destination.
Number two says, "There are no Nations anymore. There's only coporations." I suppose that means that the parks would be owned by MickeySoft, General Products and Lockheed Transnational. "Mars deserves a break today. No exploration will be allowed to interfere with our relative advantage over our fellow men."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Such people always have at their core a hatred for mankind and, thus, themselves. These are the people that wax poetic about beaver damns and the ecological changes they invoke and at the same time condemn man's works as destructive.
Mars is a planet that (arguably and maybe) once supported life and does so no longer (arguably and maybe). What cosmic plan does it disrupt to bring life back to that planet or bring life to it for the first time? And if he thinks that Mars' pristine wilderness is going to survive life's onslaught unchanged he is so wrong in a thousand ways!
We have earned the right to change Mars to suit ourselves and barren, lifeless vistas be damned! How did we earn it? By surviving, by achieving and by striving until we can leave our cradle and venture outward to other planets and beyond.
Wow, I thought he was dead, but he's not!. Can you point to the slam? The article you pointed to (my link works, yours had an extro /) was mostly positive about the road.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I dub thee: AC McCarthy. Arise!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
In that analogy, then, they're proposing setting up "smallpox and pillaging-free" zones in North America so that when the Jamestown colonists arrive in a couple of decades, they won't wipe out the natives...
FTA: seven areas turned into 'planetary parks', regulated just like national parks here on Earth. it's not national park, it's just something like national park. that said, the article failed to mention the which regulating body would be given the right to govern the parks (or the planet.
Question: if there are no trees on Mars to hug, aren't we going to need a new name to call these nuts?
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
Sounds like when the Pope settled a huge national dispute by drawing a line on the globe and making the one half Spanish, and other half portrugese. That really worked well, didn't it...
Ultimately, the laws on mars will have to suit the colonists. If they are reasonable then people will follow them. If they're written by people who don't know the first thing about living on Mars, then everybody up there will just violate them, including the Martian police...
Shouldn't we be a little bit more worried about the situation here on earth first? Between the issues in our current national parks and if they will exist with all the clutter and chaos of our society. Mars is YEARS off from inhabitation anyway, so why worry about that now? I mean its a great idea and all but it is much more important to first consider how we will land and live on the surface let alone utilize a national park...
_
Free 27" Sony WEGA TV
Now that this all important issue is being settled, perhaps someone will consider the needs of the lesser represented groups.
When will we get our much needed audubon preserves on Venus?
Who will protect the air quality on IO?
When will they put a stop to the deforestation of Uranus?
Another road block to going to Mars.
As if it wasn't hard enough... and improbable enough already.
I don't doubt Bush's good intentions on the Mars initiative, but I find it very hard to believe that the next administration won't kill it dead.
This dude is all like, 'everywhere you look there is a crashed spaceship...'.
When the first part of that statement is a problem then I say we worry about it.
Someone else already said this and got modded funny.
He said that the spaceships should be the natural parks. He is right. Viking 1 and 2 would be national parks if we colonized Mars.
Who knows where the economically useful areas are? Let the ones who are there (will be) there figure it out.
I hope to God we never "terraform" the Mojave, Sahara, etc, to make more room for people. We need to be able to partake in the magnificent desolation deserts provide. Hopefully, by the time we start to seriously consider infringing on pristine desert and scrubland, we'll already have up and running colonies on Luna and Mars.
How about we GET there first, then colonize, then let all the pussy treehuggers whine about it?
Rockhuggers, not treehuggers.
Olympus mons, the largest volcano in the solar system (and surrounding area).
No sense colonizing that unless Austin Powers figures out how to land Big Boy near that thing.
Muhahaha....Muhahahaha........muhahahaha!
He only wants a million dollars, anyway.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Damn rock-hugging hippies. Get a job! ;)
It would be a good idea to allocate about one or two trillion dollars to create a new government agency, called the Bureau of Interplanetary National Preservation and Wildlife Protection Agency. The BINPWPA, pronounced Binapwapa, after an Inuit chief who lived over three hundred years ago, would perform research to determine which areas should be named national parks on these planets. Once this is complete, they could proceed to protect regions of the sun, followed by stars, planets, asteroids, and even regions of space itself. This would be very innovative, as it would allow future generations to enjoy these wonderful national treasures.
"It is the right of every person to stand and stare across the beautiful barrenness and desolation of the Martian surface."
Let me get this straight: every person has a right to stand on mars? WTF?
Hey! My rights are being violated! Who do I sue?
Uh, in other news, the United States has announced that it is naming portions of China national parks, so that future Americans can enjoy these national treasures once China becomes the 53rd state (after Afghanistan and Iraq, but before Antarctica).
Ummmm... once we are sending tourists to Mars don't you think we could just go pick up the Beagles & Pathfinders and get them out of the view.
But then, the natural life & habitat on Mars definitely deserve to be saved from the ravages of science. In addition to this brilliant plan, I propose we declare all meteors world parks to stop potential mining. Oh yeah, and the sun, we need to make sure nothing falls into it and messes up it's surface. Damn it, we've already polluted the vacuum of space with our satellites and outgasing. We must stop before it's too late! Oh, the horror!
Seriously though, might be be useful to find out what's really there/unique/useful on the surface before declaring them off limits? At the rate we are going, there's a good chance that any body that would make such a designation wouldn't be around anymore by the time we get there. For instance, if Ceasar had designated a national park in Egypt, I don't think the Egyptians would go out of their way to care in 2004.
Every place in the universe is different. Every place has something special and unique. And every place (even those 7 reserves) will be changed when we get in the vicinity.
/.ers.
So, we're in one of two positions:
1) We're stuck here on earth because we can't go anywhere else, in which case we need to be good stewards of the one place we can live.
2) We come to terms with the fact that we have to get off the planet some day, in which case we need to be good stewards of the many places we end up living.
Either way, we've got a long way to go 'til we've got this stewardship thing under control.
PS. I'm not a hippie. I just don't like my fish filled with mercury and my dog covered in grease. STFU about my dog
Look, as long as we get to bomb Cydonia and send troops into the Pyramids there to destroy the alien C3I, it's all good.
[o]_O
More pragmatic concerns such as mineral concentration should be closely examined here. Up here in Alaska, we're well aware of what happens if you simply go around creating national parks everywhere you go.
Familiar with ANWR? quite a large chunk of the state (a peice of land which is by itself larger, in fact, than most other states)is dedicated to the 'preservation of wildlife'. While this is a nice thought, and certainly looks good on paper, the simple fact of the matter is that it's a frozen wasteland that noone would want to visit, and populated only sparsely by animal life.
It also happens to be sitting atop the largest potential oil resource in North America, but becuase of its park status, which is quite difficult to revoke, it cannot currently be used.
A more flexible system for these parks than we use on our own planet may be in order, preserving the ability to acquire mineral rights, but mandating protection for these specific formations and a certain level of public access. As we'll be the only living things on the face of mars, we don't have to feel guilty about ruining it for other life.
Maybe I'm off topic here.
/flame away
But I'm reading slashdot outside the U.S. and maybe the term 'National Park' sounds too local. I assume that not only americans will be able to visit it.
How about declaring a U.N. World Heritage site.
That they pay to send someone to Mars to put up the little signs along the interpretative trails.
Anyway, if/when Mars get colonized the whole thing is going to change. There may be some terraforming which means plants, atmosphere, that kind of thing so none of it will be the same.
"Are we there yet?"
I hope they don't conserve the big mars grand canyon - I wanna put a roof over it and live underground.
I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not saying that France-bashers are all wrong, either. All I'm saying is that it's overdone and tired.
Sounds like a great way to sabotage exploration, I recommend it is up to the people who move there.
There is one thing to consider though which is contamination. As far as I know this is well considered already. The point as mentioned in news recently is that contamination by hyrdrocarbons will throw off searches for life, and more importantly though not covered in much detail, is nuclear or heavy metal contamination.
Recently it is becoming better publicized that all we need are nuclear powered rockets and we can go and come from Mars comparatively quickly and easily. The point of course is that you don't want to contaminate the only water source for ten thousand miles (if there is one). This may become an important issue to resolve in the future.
What makes Mars special?
I mean, we might as well care about "what parks on Uranus?" And if we care about what parks on Uranus, maybe we have to worry about whether Uranus gets dirty, or if Uranus needs special protection. I for one don't think we have the means to clean up a snowball from beyond the system's rim that crashes into Uranus and violates the rules about what may land on Uranus.
We might as well be deciding "what parks in a black hole?"
Ummm, no. The planet is completely open to settlement. If you establish conservation areas you are restricting settlement, not "freeing up" anything.
The french bashing is done because people find it funny.
The china bashing is done because it is true.
slight difference.
I think the russian will eat the rest.
There are many reports about russians kanabelizing
Just take a look at the records from the battle on stalinggrad
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
So which nation gets dibs?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"We've already crashed unmanned spacecraft there - Mars Polar Lander and possibly Beagle 2 - so there's already an environmental issue," Cockell told news@nature.com. He says the crashes are as irresponsible as dropping robots over the Antarctic."
As if these "irresponsible" crashes were intentional. Gimme a break!
would just like to say amen my brother.
I can see him in his Cowboy outfit now :p
I would like to however claim the night side as a interplanetarty parkland.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The only answer to this question is that all of Mars should be declared a Extra-terrestrial Park. No mining, no exploitation, no contamination. Otherwise its just death by a thousand cuts, just like good 'ol Earth.
Otherwise its just death by a thousand cuts, just like good 'ol Earth.
Mars is already dead (with the possible exception of microbes).
Earth--with all its "mining", "exploitation" and "contamination"--is actually the one planet that's full of life.
Deport all the whining civilization-hater "greens" there, and let them cope with the elements bare-ass naked and unprotected by such unsightly man-made trimmings as space suits or pressure domes.
We can call the resulting freeze-dried gradually-sandblast-eroding planetary monument "the loving kindness of mother nature".
How many vehicles are we planning on crashing on the planet so that you can't look anywhere without seeing one of them? At the current rate we're sending out Mars missions... how long would it even take?
If it's my right to stand and stare across Mars, then I demand that Tony Blair get his arse in gear and commit the government to building an Earth-Mars link to open within the lifetime of the next Parliament. It'd be a better use of my taxes than ID cards, that's for sure!
You must think in Russian.
Since when Mars belongs to a single nation ?
Neither Mars nor Earth belongs to the people who live on it or plan to do so.
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
More likely this would be something like China's national park or India's national park.
I've been sent this communique to relay to the world though Slashdot:
We are a small island nation in Micronesia. (forgive my English) We have already made all of Mars a National Religious Sanctuary Park. Quit crashing your space ships into our god. We will be sending some monks trained in martial arts and electronics to enforce park rules as soon as we can.
Kim Stanley Robinson aside, actually terraforming Mars looks almost insanely difficult. You need huge amounts of heat, and probably to add huge amount of light elements to make a useable atmosphere. Someone may come up with something new, but
none of the proposed methods will actually get you there in any reasonable timescale.
What I have seeen proposed, with numbers, is the "world-house" concept. Essentially you build a tent perhaps 1 mile high over possibly quite large areas of Mars. The tent fabric is chosen to be transparent to light, opaque to UV and reflective to IR, and its weight is supported by the pressure of the gas underneath it. A few pilons or mountains hold it in place. This helps warm the surface by keeping in the IR, and drastically reduces the amount of atmosphere you need (because it stops 1 mile up) and is a whole lot quicker and cheaper to make than making the rest of an atmosphere.
In this context, of course, the Martian "national" parks are easy to achieve. Just don't biuld that section of the world-house! There would be some problems with disruption to wind patterns, leakage of subsurface heat and so on, but probably nothing that couldn't be managed in a suitable "buffer zone".
What is reasonable? The heat, light elements, and time are all obtainable.
The US doesn't own mars.
Is this the US media build up to an invasion of China or the beginnings of a campaign against China overtaking the US in manufacturing power ?
I think it could be argued that most of "us" (in the global sense) have learned very few lessons...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
For the sake of argument, take reasonable as = 1000 years.
It's an interesting dilemma. The only really good way to colonize Mars involves terraforming it. But the only way to preserve parts of the Martian surface precludes terraforming it.
You'd be correct if terraforming were just around the corner. But I think the technology, the resources, and the political will won't exist for such a long time that any laws or regulations we make about it now will be totally irrelevant (maybe even forgotten) by the time we are capable of terraforming Mars. My guess would be that we're talking hundreds upon hundreds, maybe even a thousand years.
The cost of building biodomes is such a small fraction of terraforming the whole planet that I can pretty much guarantee this will happen before the latter becomes an option. And I think the Martian colonies will probably even declare independence and make up their own minds about the issue, regardless of what we decide now.
Who knows, the whole notion of the territorial nation-state might even become obsolete in that time.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
1. Interior Dept. budgets for rangers, construction of roads and other facilities.
2. Congress investigates where funds are used.
3. Congress indicts Interior Secretary.
4. Funds go to NASA.
5. NASA plans, plans, and plans a trip to Mars, again.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
How about: International parks. (Interplanetary parks maybe)
The ranger will never find us there.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
The idea of assigning planetary parks seems a little absurd to me, at least at the moment. As you've pointed out, Mars is huge, and the small number of exploring vehicles travelling there at the moment is unlikely to make a dent. I can appreciate the reason to be concerned in the longer term, though.
Traditionally, the first people to colonise a new world are the ones who are most destructive. New worlds have no (recognised) government or restrictions on what can be done. This is why they're so enticing for plunderers. It's essentially how and why Europeans spread around the globe. A lot of cultures and spaces were destroyed or heavily damaged because profiteers with guns could do what they wanted and nobody who might control them knew or cared about what they were doing.
In the end, the people paying the bulk of the price for this, short of everyone who was killed, are us, because lots has been lost. There aren't any people living on Mars, but there's the potential for a lot of resources. It's certainly big. At the same time, however, the ability of small profiting groups for destroying or heavily damaging big things in relatively short spans of time (such as the amount of time it would take to establish a proper government) is also very significant.
Establishing planetary parks seems a bit silly to me. I can appreciate the point of view that says we should take an interest, however. On the assumption that it's not monitored, I think today's corporates could quite possibly destroy a lot of Mars before people start to realise there's even a problem.
Calling these proposed seven protected zones a National Park is nonsense for these reasons:
1-Any college dictionary defines a 'park' as a game preserve- Mars has none- or an arena such as a ballpark 'is that a baseball? or a flying sphere? ouch!
2-National implies that Mars belongs to a nation; that one's already been laid to rest. Where were you gonna aim your spacegun to prove that one? at martians?
3-I can appreciate the value of uncontaminated geochemical specimens from mars. But on a scale of relative importance, it is nowhere as important as protecting the oceans from an oil spill..or my sanity from fools..
I was always of the opinion while reading the Mars Trilogy that they would largely come to pass... and look at this... we haven't even landed any people there yet and we have the 'pristine vs teraform' argument going on.
:D
Excellent
I actually read it very differently. The promoters of this idea aren't claiming any property rights at all. They're more interested in seeking international agreements to respect the environment, as anything like this needs to, and similar to whatever agreements govern places like Antarctica.
On the contrary, I think that leaving space junk lying around without cleaning it up is much more akin to invoking property rights.
Spacecraft on Mars are still a novelty, and even the promoters of the idea acknowledge that it's centuries into the future when this type of thing is likely to become more relevant. But we're at the point now when a contaminated spacecraft could potentially damage local or larger places on Mars that are interesting to explore for all sorts of reasons.
We're also at a point when corporations are on the edge of going there much more frequently than scientists, and when there's no governing authority in place, corporates are likely to have a lo less respect for the environment than scientists. I don't see it as being altogether irrational to be considering something like this.
The chances of a person actually LIVING on Mars is considerably less!!!!
And you're right if we ever do waste trillions of dollars to establish a colony, it would be far easier to scavange metal from our "probe litter" than to dig thousands of pounds of ore to derive a couple pounds of titanium.
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Tens of thousands of times the available resources
No colonizers.
What do you suppose the chances are for mars???
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The neo-con wars here at home is bankrupting us. We'll barely have enough money to terraform our OWN ecologies back into a functioning state.
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...
Mars is too light to hold it's own atmosphere.
I propose planetary bombardment by perturbing the asteroid belt. At the same time, automated gas mining around jupiters moons would propel frozen gasballs down at mars.
It would take hundreds of years to settle. But in the end you want a BLUE planet, not a RED one!!!
If the atmosphere isn't breatheable, it's a fucking waste of time.
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We awna whaole western hemisfeere
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Holy Jesus Christ. No one's even been to that goddamn planet and already we're talking about setting up national parks? Get a life, man. Mars is a goddamn wasteland. In any case, we're not sending nearly enough spacecraft there to make crashed vehicles and eyesore. Sometimes I wonder how people actually spend time thinking BS like this up. Is he on crack? Jesus.
Uh, "national park" is an entity defined and delimited, and established and preserved by a "nation", a soveriegn state with internationally recognized soveriegnty over the lands so designated. So who "owns" Mars. Is this not a rather blatant, or ignorant' call for imperialism or hegemony over the planet Mars? (I assume we are talking about the US. If not, then "Hell no! You EU or Canadian bastards ain't gonna take over our Mars!! :)!
...
Come on guys, you shoulda studied history or government in school, at least before even taking up such a silly topic. Look at how much legislation (not to mention politics, and "power" being exerted by the US fed gov't it took to set up the first "National Park", not to mention all the others... including those we still are trying to establish. YOU ho argue with the ranchers and miners, etc., if you don't understand
And, btw, "national parks rarely keep anything "pristine" (which it sounds like these guys actually are asking for). Look at Yellowstone, or numerous others -- like, those set up for "off-road trails", or parks allowing dune buggies, etc. I think "natural preserve" or "wilderness area" is the more likely US-type entity they want. Anyway, just goes to show, scince smarts don't necessarily equal political or social or other kinds of smarts...
Alcaide's Cafe,
I dont know why, but EVERYONE here suddnely jumped on the colonization train... no one was talking of colonization! they just wanted to prevent the whole of mars becoming a space dumpster....
You need huge amounts of heat
But that's counterproductive. The more heat added, the faster atmospheric molecules move, and the more readily they fly off into space- which with low planetary gravity would happen quickly anyhow.
If Mars COULD hold an atmosphere, it WOULD have an atmosphere... so the tent-based concept is even more important, compared to idealistic unenclosed terraforming.
Timescales. If you somehow could give Mars an atmosphere it would leak away over millions of years. Over thousands though, this effect is unimportant.
Tough call. I think it's manageable in that time frame, but the costs would be incredible. The incremental approach (eg, using vast tents) mentioned in this thread seems to be a better solution.