Now Nasa looks to change Mars into a garden of Earthly delights

Guardian ^ | March 28, 2004 | Robin McKie

[samtheman]

This is future homeland for the human race. All this talk about the ethics of locking out the developers in order to preserve a few microbes reminds me of chosing snail-darters over the welfare of American farmers.

Allow a decent interval to explore Mars, see exactly what's there, keeping it as pristine as possible for during that interval (so as to not disturb the investigation, sort of like keeping the integrity of a crime scene) and once we're satisfied that there's no life or that we've collected and stored enough samples of whatever minisicule life there is: start ripping and tearing!

[TomB]

'The idea of terraforming Mars is extreme, but it is not cranky - that is the truly horrible thing about it,' said Paul Murdin, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. 'If it was just a silly science-fiction notion, you could laugh it off. But the idea is terribly real. That is why it is dreadful. We are mucking up this world at an incredible pace at the same time that we are talking about screwing up another planet.'

Huh?

Just think of the amount of hate for the human race one must have in order to make that statement.

[Wilhelm Tell]

I knew it. The "environmentalists" are against taking a dead or virtually dead planet like Mars and restoring it to life. If no microbes are found on Mars, the environmental extremists will argue that man ought not harm the "purity" of the lifeless dirt. What animates the environmental extremists is a hatred of mankind.

[Wilhelm Tell]

I'm sure there were those who used similar language opposing modern medicine because antibiotics and surgery disrupt the "natural order of things" and it is God's or Nature's will to let people get ill and die.

[FITZ]

she added. 'This is just not on.'

Okay --- she convinced me with that.

[Neville72]

Interesting article but isn't Arthur C. Clarke dead?

[OneRatToGo]

Just think of it as a late term Martian abortion. It's our right as humans to choose.

[samtheman]

I knew it. The "environmentalists" are against taking a dead or virtually dead planet like Mars and restoring it to life. If no microbes are found on Mars, the environmental extremists will argue that man ought not harm the "purity" of the lifeless dirt. What animates the environmental extremists is a hatred of mankind.

The novel Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robin predicts exactly what you describe. Terrorist environmentalists killing settlers in order to save the "purity of red sand".

[hopespringseternal]

It isn't called the culture of death for nothing.

[DeuceTraveler]

'The idea of terraforming Mars is extreme, but it is not cranky - that is the truly horrible thing about it,' said Paul Murdin, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. 'If it was just a silly science-fiction notion, you could laugh it off. But the idea is terribly real. That is why it is dreadful. We are mucking up this world at an incredible pace at the same time that we are talking about screwing up another planet.'

ARGH! These people are loonie! What the heck is wrong with these guys? What are you going to do, endanger some Martian species? It's a dead planet!

[Future Snake Eater]

I've been hearing about this idea since I was a kid, and it's always fascinated me. However, it makes me wonder if it's even possible. A lot of their theories for raising the temperature on Mars to something tolerable by humans involves global warming practices, something that isn't even proven on Earth--and we have enormous active volcanoes helping us out here, something that isn't available on Mars.

[general_re]

...turning the Red Planet into a blue world with streams, green fields and fresh breezes and filling it with Earthly creatures.

Planet of the Supermodels, here we come...

[Wonder Warthog]

"...the environmental extremists will argue that man ought not harm the "purity" of the lifeless dirt."

Actually, they are ALREADY arguing that way about the Moon.

[Crazieman]

The difference being Earth has huge oceans and huge amounts of life automatically regulating what we spew out - its the Sun and its cycles that cause the heating. (We couldn't make a difference unless we really set off all of our nukes).

Mars has an extremely thin atmosphere and no regulation, pumping huge quantities of so called "Greenhouse gases" would actually make a significant difference.

[GregoryFul]

The "environmentalists" should be made aware that if we terraform Mars, we could potentially save millions of earthly species from extinction due to some stray asteroid hitting earth, or some gigantic volcanic event, or even global warming, ice age, etc. Maybe they would go for the idea!

[Thermalseeker]

Interesting article but isn't Arthur C. Clarke dead?

Yeah, I thought he died a year or so ago.

[fishtank]

Funny thing is, KSR is a bigtime socialist, and his stories portrayed two groups of commies going at each other: the pro-terraformers vs the anti-terraformers.

[BlazingArizona]

Interesting article but isn't Arthur C. Clarke dead?

He's not well, but still alive.

[FierceDraka]

The novel Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson predicts exactly what you describe. Terrorist environmentalists killing settlers in order to save the "purity of red sand".

That's the same thing I thought. I thought the Martian Reds in the series were a pack of flaming nut-cases, just like our Greenies.