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NASA Proposes Warming Mars
hotsauce writes "The Guardian reports a NASA scientist has proposed releasing a gas on Mars to start a global warming of the planet in order to make it more hospitable for life. No word on how much traction this has amongst geophysicists. I wonder how much simulation and testing you need before we feel safe about affecting an entire planet."
Everyone knows that protomatter is unstable.
Shouldn't be that hard considering how good us humans are at causing global warming!
Ohh, just a few more decades and we'll have a viable test bed right here on earth.
Maybe we could ship all of them to Mars? Well worth the cost if you ask me.
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With all that methane being generated, it should warm the place up quickly
Apparently none, since we are modifying the earth in bad ways every day. Having another planet we can live on sounds like a great idea to me, since this one is becoming less habitable every day.
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I wonder how much simulation and testing you need before we feel safe about affecting an entire planet. We've been affecting Earth for quite some time. Hell, we're experts in global warming. Bring on Mars!
Right, because we absolutely cannot risk damaging the delicate ecosystem on Mars, thereby rendering the planet inhospitable for human life!
It's a nice idea, but it just won't work. According to the Bush administration, there is no such thing as global warming, thus we would be unable to raise the temps on Mars. ;-)
Todd
Last one to open a burger restaurant on Mars is a sissy!
Is now a good time to tinker with another planet's atmosphere?
When isn't it a good time to tinker with another planet's atmosphere?
Black and grey are both shades of white.
Hey can't they just kick start the core with a big nuke? I'm sure I saw that in a documentary or a movie.
I don't think we have to abide by the laws of Star Trek.
> When Mankind can prove it can live in equilibrium oni Earth, then it can spread elsewhere.
What do we do when we prove we can't then?!
I sure hope Khan doesn't find out about this plan. Although, maybe if he does, we can send the dead scripts from Enterprise to the budding planet and resurrect a franchise ...
If Mars can be made to look anything like Frank Cho's vision, I'm all for it.
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--
Get your Ass to Mars!
That will get global warming going in a hurry.
Once again, someone avoids admitting his ignorance by lashing out at someone else.
Go call up Chris McKay at NASA and tell him your feelings about his project. My prediction is that he'll say something other than "Oh my gosh! You're right! I'll begin a more realistic project immediately!"
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I wonder how much simulation and testing you need before we feel safe about affecting an entire planet
It's funny how they're talking about radically changing another world but thing that astonished me the most was the proper use of "affected" instead of "effected" in a Slashdot post.
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We can't seem to get our outdated shuttles off the ground safely, or keep a permanent space staion running effectively. Is now a good time to tinker with another planet's atmosphere?
But we are already good at fucking up planets!
Uh, and the risk would be what? That Mars would become uninhabitable?
I'm sure the previous poster is willing to wait as long as it takes to be correct. It is the Slashdot Way. ;-)
This should be a raving success. I mean, look at how successful we are at warming up the Earth!
Troll? Hell yeah!
Well, remember that NASA is likely to be involved here. A little confusion between megatons and gigatons, and blammo, Mars could be propelled inwards towards Earth's orbit.
I'd settle for replacement by a species that can draft coherent sentences.
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Anyone else see the irony in someone with the name "ArthurDent" saying that the Earth is not in imminent danger of destruction?
Forget global warning for a minute, earthman, and consider a meteor the size of Texas slamming into us at a few million miles per hour. The effects of that would be, in a word, bad.
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
Fuck 'em both!! Mod 'em sideways, and then diagonally!!
To warm Barsoom, all we have to do is locate the Atmosphere Plant and fix whatever has been damaged. (There's a few regions which had their own local plants, so maybe if we locate all of them, we can MacGyver something out of all the parts.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I've studied this extensively and can tell you that Governator Arnold can set up an atmosphere on Mars in just a few minutes. I totally recall watching this happen.
But then we'll just get cancelled.
There is no life-ending catastrophe even on the most distant horizon.
While you're at it, can you give me next weeks lottery numbers?
My guess is you're conservative because you'd rather save $5 today than avoid a possible global crisis. The narrow minded, poor planning, ethnocentric, pathetic administration is right up your alley.
Sorry, but that pre-judgmental, unsubstantiated, conversationally shallow, narrow-minded, and just dead wrong comment, meant to do no more than enflame a meaningless confrontation... warrrants no further reponse than this.
4 out of 3 people have trouble with fractions
I picture an enormous d20 crashing to the Martian surface and someone at NASA ominously saying "You've just failed your saving throw versus PROGRESS."
I am starting the People Unified to Stop Science In Extraterrestrial Settings. Join today to help us stop this senseless disregard for possible microbial life on Mars! Life is life and we must preserve it to the end!
We can make Mars like Earth when we're done making Earth like Venus.
Let's try to focus here, people.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
We found it. It didn't have anyone's name on it.
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Given the chance they'd kill all of us for our wine, water and women. I say wipe them out now before it's too late!
Launch a fresnel lens the size of Australia at the sun adjustable to keep its focus on the red planet. then videotape all the little green guys as they crawl out of the ground with their heads on fire.
Some millions years before an ancient civilization was forced to leave their planet and move to earth because of a ecological catastrophe which they have generated.
Now, a civilization will be forced to move back because of Bush.