[KevinDavis]

It is our destiny....

[KevinDavis]

"Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth's surface. In millions of years their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere, and themselves. They will control the climate and the Solar System just as they control the Earth. They will travel beyond the limits of our planetary system; they will reach other Suns…”
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky c.1926

[Calpernia]

ping

[Gunslingr3]

Others -- equally passionate -- recoil at such pretension, proclaiming with surety that humans have no right to interfere with Nature

I always ask these folks in person if they'd move out of their house and scratch a living from Nature the 'natural' way. No takers so far. The don't seem to appreciate we're part of Nature, and what we do is as 'natural' as how every other living thing reshapes the world in furtherance of it's life.

[Tired of Taxes]

My son started talking about "terraforming Mars" and Europa when he was five. I think that's still one of his dreams.

But, I don't see how it presents a religious conflict. If one believes there's a God who put us here for a purpose, and made us special in His likeness, why wouldn't that purpose include preparing other planets for use as our habitats?

[k2blader]

Privately funded? No problem.

[JasonC]

Nobody needs any "right" to "interfer" with nature. Nature already gave us that, when it gave us mass. The "green" quietist side of this "debate" is sillier than words can express, and does not know it. Existence is interference with the rest of the cosmos.

[brazzaville]

Good evening.

We either learn how to get off the planet or face annihilation as a species some time in the future.

Michael Frazier

[Amish with an attitude]

The Liberals accuse me of Terraforming because I drive an SUV.

[AntiGuv]

Others -- equally passionate -- recoil at such pretension, proclaiming with surety that humans have no right to interfere with Nature as writ large upon the face of other worlds.

The best thing about colonizing Mars may be that such whiny, stupid people won't be part of it.

Weird, isn’t it, that an enterprise that no one now alive can remotely hope to see fulfilled should arouse such fire and fury?

This is a remarkably and disappointingly ignorant statement. I would bet the author, however, that someone now alive will live see the enterprise fulfilled - interest on the wager compounded annually until then. ;)

[lilylangtree]

Terraforming reminds me of the Sigourney Weaver's movie Aliens where the military goes to a planet to rescue the terraformers.

[RightWhale]

hear these discussions for what they really are: religious conflicts

No, I don't think so. They may have some of the fervor of religious debates, and some of the participants may consider themselves religious, but there is something else going on. It's not the wish for material fulfilment either because that is where hubris leads. Probably it is the idea that we should do these things because we were given the ability to do them. Why, we may never know for sure.