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Should Earthlings colonise Mars?
Times of India ^ | 1.18.04 | Unnamed Martian

Posted on 01/23/2004 6:24:42 PM PST by ambrose

Star Wars: Should Earthlings colonise Mars?

[ SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2004 12:00:46 AM ]

Martian: Earthlings have destroyed their own planet; they may have little choice.

The surface of our planet appears to be a sterile, frigid desert, most inhospitable for life as Earthlings know it. We hardly have an atmosphere worth mentioning as it's mostly carbon dioxide with very little oxygen or water vapour.

Because of this, daily temperatures vary by as much as 100 degrees Celsius - from a balmy 17 degree high to a bone chilling -87 degree low - while surface temperatures and pressure are too cold and low for water to exist in a liquid state here.

The kindest thing one could say about it is that the planet resembles a cold and hostile high-altitude waste of desolation.

Yet they can't stop wanting to come here. Way back in their 1960s they started lifting off on rickety rockets, which more often than not fell back, exploded or wandered off elsewhere in space before a few finally made it to our orbit and hardly a handful touched down on the surface.

In fact, even as we speak, one of their landers is lost (though to be fair to them, another is getting ready to start poking around the planet).

And you know why? It's because Mars wasn't always a bleak and barren wilderness. Circa three billion - give or take 500 million - years ago after it was formed, our planet had huge bodies of still and flowing water on its surface which have left tell-tale signatures on the terrain.

Actually, it was quite like the young Earth was at the time. Temperatures were hot to middling, the atmospheric pressure was high and all systems were go for life to begin and start evolving.

Indeed, some Earth scientists believe such an event did take place. They think so because some years back in 1996 they found an ancient Martian meteorite which had lain buried in the Antarctic ice for three to four billion years and which on examination turned out to contain what looked like microscopic shapes that resemble living and fossil bacteria on Earth.

This raises the fascinating possibility that even though there may be no life on Mars now, it could have been teeming with it in the remote past. All the more reason Earthlings should come over to check it out for themselves. At least it'll give them some reassurance - they aren't (or at least weren't) alone in the universe.

But the Martian meteorites also raise an even more profound question. If for some reason life on Earth had not yet begun when these spore carrying rocks landed, then could not the friendly environment have nurtured it further?

If so then all life on Earth today has actually come from Mars. And Earth people are the real Martians.

In which case it's about time they should come home.

As told to Mukul Sharma


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: mars; martians
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To: ambrose
Manifest Destiny, you bet. How are we to take our "star trek" without going to Mars? Hope it will be long before 2030.
21 posted on 01/23/2004 7:12:11 PM PST by luvbach1
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To: ambrose
Regarding costs:
What did it cost to go to the moon the first time, in dollars?
Do you think we could do it for less* or would the economy of scale make it much more expensive?
We sent the rovers for what, 480 million a piece (or is that both of them)?
Would a human mission cost double or triple that?

Keep in mind that this is lest than the cost of three or four california "big time hollywierdo" estates. The proceeds from 10 or 15 "blockbuster movies", literally a drop in our national bucket...

One of my biggest "whatif's" is what if what we discover on mars, or with the technology we need to get there, sets us free from the mad mullahs monopolizing the world's oil supply? What if our need to find a way to power, fuel, oxygenate and colonize mars, SAVES us from our environmental concerns for the next twenty millenia?

What if?








*adjusted for inflation of course
22 posted on 01/23/2004 7:15:24 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2
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To: Robert_Paulson2
I will tell you what should happen, and this is very possible. It won't happen soon enough, of course, because we can't just make a total national leap into the unknown as if we were Red China. When outer space is developed sufficiently and if that development is integrated with the American and world economy, the world national product should grow to several times its present size. What will then bring happiness is a different problem, but at least we will all be rich.
23 posted on 01/23/2004 7:20:19 PM PST by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: ambrose
Earth First
We can log the other planets later.
24 posted on 01/23/2004 7:26:34 PM PST by Sender (Code Yellow: continue shopping, please don't litter)
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To: RightWhale
I believe that when it was time to develop "the hidden asset" of this planet, the Americas, the resources needed were too great for folks to imagine, entire nations of wealth were put at jeopardy for the purpose of finding that unknown route to the far east.

And once the americas were discovered, entire nations of wealth were focused on the new world. As soon as we got enough computer technology to know we could figure out the next step and go for it, we took a large chunk of change to take the next toddling step to expansion of the species' domain. Space, and then the moon, which were each just a stepping stone to the future.
Once we had the moon under our belt, and COULD have been sharpening our skills for it, MARS, IO and our own solar system were actually within reason for consideration. Each step makes the next possible, probable and impossible to avoid... an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

logic AND experience dictate that when we learn how to colonize our system and spread the human seed to sol system... we will be challenged to fold space, cheat theoretical lightspeed and if we cannot do it by our own wits, I expect supernatural help.

The momentus-destiny paradigm will drive human kind to propagate the universe. It is the core of our god-bred human programming. It's what we do.

25 posted on 01/23/2004 7:37:36 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2
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To: ambrose
Should Earthlings colonise Mars?

Yeah, I guess.

26 posted on 01/23/2004 7:38:54 PM PST by new cruelty (Better the devil you know than the devil don't)
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To: Robert_Paulson2
We are RAPIDLY "Running Out of Capital" to fund what MAY BE our Species' Destiny.

That we Don't "Go to the Stars" is NOT a problem of Technology or Funding (at the moment), it is a matter of WILL.

If we Fail this "Test;" "Humankind" may well become an "Ancient, Failed Lifeform" catalogued by some future Interstellar Species.

To "Involute," & abandon the Dreams of our "Best Ones", is to Wither--& Die!

There are LOTS of us "Humans" who would have our Species "Go On to the Stars!"

So WHO will lead us--those who would have us "Involute," & "Care for the Poor:" or Those who would have us "Care for the Poor AND, 'Go To The Stars!!'"

Our G'Grandchildren will CURSE the Names of Those Who Turned Their Backs on the Stars!!

THIS, I Guarantee!!

Doc

27 posted on 01/23/2004 7:41:04 PM PST by Doc On The Bay
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To: Doc On The Bay
When daddy gives sonny boy the bicycle for his birthday... he will only let little johnny stay off it for a while...

Eventually, johnny will either volunteer to ride the bloody thing skinned up ankles and elbows notwithstanding, or daddy will help johnny see the light. Yes, I speak from experience.

This is because balance is a lesson that MUST be learned.
This is the nature of reality.
Mankind will be "prompted" by the "hand from nowhere" if he does not move voluntarily.

and NO we will not turn our backs on the stars.
God layed abraham on his arse one night, concerning destiny, and said "Sonnyboy, just you look at the stars, and to the degree you can them, you will be able to count your own seed.." As the stars of the heaven.. so shall thy seed be." That decidedly means mankind is destined to be all over the universe and in massive quantities, NOT just on some tiny plot of ground in the local cemetary... or some extinct fossil in a dead universe. No way.


God knew then what he was directing abraham's attention to. God knew an infinite number of humans on a scale with the entire hosts of heaven would require LOTS of real estate to live on... explore and develop.

The imagery was not mistakeable.
We have a destiny, to exist as the sands of the shore, and the endless seas of stars in the heavens above us. So is our destiny.

I am of the opinion that we will engage and conquer space...
and NOT go extinct in the process.

Given the terraforming and farming skills of the human race, ultimately the soil on Mars, looks rather tillable to me.. the rocks look easy to gather, all it needs is the human touch.

The question is, will we get with the program in our lifetime? Or will we spend all our capitol on constructing the perfect nannystate utopian socialist order here?
28 posted on 01/23/2004 8:02:04 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2
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To: Robert_Paulson2
'Nuff Said.

Doc

29 posted on 01/23/2004 8:24:16 PM PST by Doc On The Bay
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To: marron
"We should have had a permanent moon base for 20 years now and an ISS on the surface of Mars for 10 years now."

Agreed on the moon, not on Mars. Mars is a fairly worthless place to colonize. I think it should have been a permanent moon base(s!) and active mining of asteroids.

That possibly yields the best chance for success as it has the highest profit potential which is absolutely critical for private involvement. Private involvement is what made our ancestors settle the west.

Money was and will need to be a huge driving force to our successful exploration and colonization in space. Government, (Lewis and Clark and others..) investigated and mapped, private companies followed and that drove settlement.
30 posted on 01/23/2004 8:35:54 PM PST by JSteff
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To: JSteff
I think it should have been a permanent moon base(s!) and active mining of asteroids.

I agree. And you are right. It isn't going to really take off until private actors get involved. The task in the meantime is to keep pushing the technology forward until we get those first interesting core samples back, the ones that draw private money into the game.

31 posted on 01/23/2004 9:06:10 PM PST by marron
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To: marron
It isn't going to really take off until private actors get involved.

good point.
32 posted on 01/24/2004 6:32:32 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2
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