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OTOH, Robert Zubrin had several talks with Newt Gingrich who seemed to at least support going to Mars.
Yes we can and yes we should.
> Can we do it?
Yes.
> Should we do it?
Yes. (What, you wouldn't amke a desert island bloom if you could?)
> Is it anti-God, unethical?
No more than turnign a desert into a farm is unethical.
> Since global warming is probably bunk, does that negate this entire concept?
A: "Global warming" isn't bunk. Human-created global warmign may well be.
B: The greenhouse effect is well understood. Ask anyone with a greenhouse.
C: The requirements for global warming on the scale of Mars are *vast*, and wholly unlike a bunch of belching SUV's.
> Robert Zubrin had several talks with Newt Gingrich ...
Do not overestimate the relevance of Zubrin. He has burned just about every bridge he has ever come near.
We should only do it if we make sure all people who wish to migrate to Mars swear an oath to the martian constitution, if later they turn lefty, we float them off into space ...
You should read the book - I've got a few extra copies that I picked up a few years back through a California Mars Society chapter, Freepmail me your address and I'll mail you one.
We can certainly do it, and without the wasteful stopover at the space station that NASA seems to have wedged in to the Mars Direct plan in order to justify that particular white elephant. We went to the Moon approaching forty years ago with computers that were essentially glorified calculators.
How could it be anti-God? He commanded us to be fruitful and multiply, and fill up the earth, how much more godly is it to bring God's gift of life and mind to a barren planet! Imagine a human society, centuries from now, that spans three planets and the asteroid belt, and consists of a trillion humans living in prosperity and peace. What could be more godly than that?
Global warming isn't bunk, it's the idea that human CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming that's bunk. The scientific principles of trapping infrared radiation near the surface of a planet with CO2 and other greenhouse gasses is well-established, on Venus and elsewhere.
Our descendents will do this, unless we discover Earth-like worlds around other stars, and a technology to travel there.
I like Carl Sagan's concept (the subject of his doctoral thesis) of terraforming Venus. This would take centuries, far longer than Mars.
I don't want them marsiforming us, so maybe we should leave them alone.
Science ping to read tonight at work.
RZ: The basis of ethics needs to be of benefit to humanity.
This sets off all the warning bells and hazard lights. If the basis of ethics is "benefit to humanity," I damned well want to know how the author defines "benefits," and probably need to know whom he includes in "humanity." Any number of horrors or idiocies have been justified as being "of benefit to humanity."
Okay, maybe I'm just philosophically anal.
Don't Mess With The Martian Environment!
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Its not an easy read. I finished only first two so far.
Agree or not, the author presents a fascinating saga with conflicting characters with different visions of how or whether at all to terraform Mars, economy of a far away colony, independence from Earth, and countless "hard sci-fi" ideas.
I think its not a matter of should we, but when it will become feasible. Its inevitable otherwise.
"I am ready Captain Video" Ed Norton
Interesting ping
Sounds good to me.
if the atmosphere bleeds off to space faster that it can be made where does that leave the people who went there?
but this is all talk about terraforming a planet in this solar system. I agree that it may be attempted as an expirement to study effects. But to seriously propose that it is possible to, more or less, make a breathable atmosphere on a world with a mass like that of Mars is pretty far-fetched!
July 13 article? Zubrin can take a vacation. He has earned it.
With little hard knowledge of what's there, it just seems a little silly to be making detailed plans at this point in time.
FINALLY!!!
A use for all those 1970's-era aerosol cans.
Should we do it? If we want to ensure our long-term survival as a technological civilization, I would say so. It's simple common sense to not keep all of one's eggs in one basket, which is the case with humanity confined to one catastrophe-prone planet. A second human world would provide an "insurance policy" that our advanced civilization would survive even if Earth experienced a super-volcano eruption, an asteroid strike, a catastrophic solar flare, etc.
Anti-God? Unethical? Hardly. From a religious standpoint, I believe a very strong case could be made that we would be expanding and spreading the Creation beyond Earth, to the greater glory of the Kingdom.
Of course, there would be the usual cast of malcontents screaming about "despoiling" Mars by terraforming it. They could be shut down by telling them that the technologies developed from the Mars project would be applicable to reversing desertification and deforestation on Earth.
I could go on and on for hours on this topic, but I'll spare you that.
;-D
I thought the gotcha with Mars was that it lacks sufficient mass to retain anything but a very thin atmosphere.