"We have to protect Mars. Do we want to send astronauts with all their dead skin cells and bacteria? We don't want to contaminate the planet and replace possible extant life."
I suspect he is the world's expert on the way mars is now and doesnt want to go back to school to how it will be in 20 years.
Rather I think we should first terraform Mars. The atmosphere can easily now be turned to Methane which when frozen is a decent rocket fuel. The large gas planets also have a lot of methane and H2.
How do you propose to start Terraforming ? Most concepts I see need a decent industrial base well beyond Earth Orbit, and most likely, around Saturn, or out in the Inner Cometary Belt, to gather ice, and hard-land large quantities of it on Mars to build up atmospheric volume AND a resevoir of greenhouse gases. Plus, of course, the heat generated by the impact. . .
Venus is by far the more interesting Terraforming prospect: I leave the relatively trivial problem of decreasing the current solar flux on Venus to you as an intellectual exercise (evil grin)
***Rather I think we should first terraform Mars. The atmosphere can easily now be turned to Methane which when frozen is a decent rocket fuel. The large gas planets also have a lot of methane and H2. ***
If the atmosphere is converted to methane, how do we get off the planet without igniting the entire atmosphere? Or is it already in frozen form, so we wouldn't have to worry about that. Please clarify. =)