The predicted cost of going to Mars: ~$145 Billion. Iraq war thus far: ~$739 Billion
- Thread starter ColdBlooded
- Start date
aranoid:
when your government wanted to go to war with iraq, your people should have risen up and said no.
when there was no WMD, your people should have rioted and got rid of bush.
but now everyone on this world sits back and takes it up the ass, it doesn't matter how hard you fight, the majority of people will always care more about more important things, like britneys new hair style, ZOMG paris hilton got arrested! and shit like that.
when there was no WMD, your people should have rioted and got rid of bush.
but now everyone on this world sits back and takes it up the ass, it doesn't matter how hard you fight, the majority of people will always care more about more important things, like britneys new hair style, ZOMG paris hilton got arrested! and shit like that.
i believe we have been warned, and told not to go to Mars. its the only logical explanation of why we havent been
same with buildings on the moon.
why dont we have massive strip malls on the moon?
trillions of the worlds dollars into a floating cramped space station?
someone told us to get the fuck out.
the nasa files on the dark side of the moon are strange
same with buildings on the moon.
why dont we have massive strip malls on the moon?
trillions of the worlds dollars into a floating cramped space station?
someone told us to get the fuck out.
the nasa files on the dark side of the moon are strange
People are more interested in conquering this planet. The only way to get the world-leading governments to change is to simply wait until they fuck up TOO MUCH shit. When it gets TOO late. When they drop the big bombs and (hopefully) realize that it wasn't such a good idea. The people need to be put under economical pressure in order to induce change. Just imagine if electricity permanently stopped working one day. People would go nuts. Violence would reign for years. But we would have learn to adapt and live together. So the best way to start a revolution is to, unfortunately, wait for them to take it too far, or basically do something that isn't cool with most people on Earth.
Wait... this thread's about Mars. Shit.
And I don't think that life on Earth will end on 2012, but I do know that I'll be selling acid like a motherfucker for the whole month prior.
Also, that book costs exactly $100.00. How G is that?
Wait... this thread's about Mars. Shit.
And I don't think that life on Earth will end on 2012, but I do know that I'll be selling acid like a motherfucker for the whole month prior.
Also, that book costs exactly $100.00. How G is that?
the moon makes no sense to make a base. Mars is big enough to manipultate the atmosphere to a earth like planet.
Now Nasa looks to change Mars into a garden of Earthly delights
Fiction could become reality as scientists plan to 'terraform' the fourth rock from the Sun
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9
Robin McKie, science editor
The Guardian, Sunday 28 March 2004
Article history
Finding life on Mars has proved an elusive dream for decades. But scientists now believe they may be able to do it for themselves - by turning the Red Planet into a blue world with streams, green fields and fresh breezes and filling it with Earthly creatures.
The idea - known as terraforming - sounds like science fiction. But turning Mars into an Earthly paradise is being taken seriously by increasing numbers of researchers. They believe that, billions of years after its last seas and rivers dried up, Mars could be restored to its ancient glory thanks to human ingenuity. Its craters would become lakes and its red, parched hillsides would be covered with forests, ultimately providing mankind's teeming ranks with a new home.
This startling concept will be the focus of a major international debate, to be hosted this week by America's space agency, Nasa, which is preparing a multi-billion-dollar Mars research programme at the request of President Bush. Leading researchers as well as science fiction writers, including Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Bear, will attend.
'Terraforming has long been a fictional topic,' said Dr Michael Meyer, Nasa's senior scientist for astrobiology. 'Now, with real scientists exploring the reality, we can ask what are the real possibilities, as well as the potential ramifications, of transforming Mars.'
Most astronomers agree that Mars could be turned into a little Earth, though it would take decades to achieve this goal and would require massive expenditure. But many scientists are horrified by the concept.
'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.'
Over the past months, astronomers have become increasingly confident they will find Martian lifeforms after decades of disappointment. Europe's Mars Express and America's two robot rovers, Spirit and Opportunity - which are all investigating the planet at present - have detected strong evidence that water, mixed with soil, exists in large amounts on Mars.
In addition, two different groups of scientists yesterday revealed they had found traces of methane in the Martian atmosphere. The gas is a waste product of living creatures and could be a byproduct of Martian microbes living in the Red Planet's soil.
It is the risk that terraforming poses to these sorts of organisms that outrages scientists, such as Dr Lisa Pratt, a Nasa astrobiologist based at Indiana University.
'It is very depressing. Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars - which I am increasingly confident we will find - we are talking about undertaking massive projects that would wipe out all these indigenous lifeforms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the Martian soil. It is simply ethically wrong.'
To terraform Mars, engineers would have to find a way of thickening its atmosphere, whose pressure is a hundredth of that on Earth. In addition, ways will have to be found to heat up the planet. At present its surface temperature can plunge to minus 60C and below.
However, both goals - heating and thickening - could be achieved together, say researchers. One idea is to build a large mirror, many miles in diameter, and place it orbit above Mars. This would then be used to focus the Sun's rays onto a polar icecap, melting it and releasing its frozen carbon dioxide contents. The carbon dioxide would then trigger greenhouse heating.
The alternative would be to construct plants for generating super-greenhouse gases - made of complex combinations of carbon, chlorine and fluorine, and which are thousands of times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. These would be built at strategic sites across the planet and should also trigger global temperature rises. Thickening the Martian atmosphere would also protect its surface from the ultra-violet radiation that bombards its surface and which would otherwise kill off most Earth-like lifeforms on the planet.
According to Dr Chris McKay - based at Nasa's Ames Research Centre in California and a participant in this week's terraforming debate - either method could provide the terraforming project with a crucial kick-start. With a thicker, warmer atmosphere, ice trapped in the Martian soil would melt and could be used to sustain agriculture. With plants and trees imported from Earth growing and producing oxygen, the atmosphere would become slowly more Earth-like. 'We should get serious about sending life to Mars,' McKay said.
Other scientists remain cautious. 'We now know Mars used to have an atmosphere, but it disappeared for reasons that are still unclear,' said Monica Grady, a planetary scientist at the Natural History Museum, London. 'If we restore Mars's atmosphere, we could easily find it disappeared again. We would have done some devastating things to the planet for a temporary effect. That is certainly not ethical.'
The point is backed by Pratt. 'If we find life on Mars, the philosophical implications will be profound,' she said. 'If it is unlike Earthly life and has a different genetic code, this will show that living beings evolved separately on two neighbouring worlds. Life is therefore likely to be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy.
'If it has the same genetic code, however, it will indicate that one planet must have contaminated the other - probably by rocks being blasted across the solar system following meteorite impacts. We may really be Martian in origin.
'Given the importance of these issues, we simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking,' she added. 'This is just not on.'
Now Nasa looks to change Mars into a garden of Earthly delights
Fiction could become reality as scientists plan to 'terraform' the fourth rock from the Sun
Share
9
Robin McKie, science editor
The Guardian, Sunday 28 March 2004
Article history
Finding life on Mars has proved an elusive dream for decades. But scientists now believe they may be able to do it for themselves - by turning the Red Planet into a blue world with streams, green fields and fresh breezes and filling it with Earthly creatures.
The idea - known as terraforming - sounds like science fiction. But turning Mars into an Earthly paradise is being taken seriously by increasing numbers of researchers. They believe that, billions of years after its last seas and rivers dried up, Mars could be restored to its ancient glory thanks to human ingenuity. Its craters would become lakes and its red, parched hillsides would be covered with forests, ultimately providing mankind's teeming ranks with a new home.
This startling concept will be the focus of a major international debate, to be hosted this week by America's space agency, Nasa, which is preparing a multi-billion-dollar Mars research programme at the request of President Bush. Leading researchers as well as science fiction writers, including Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Bear, will attend.
'Terraforming has long been a fictional topic,' said Dr Michael Meyer, Nasa's senior scientist for astrobiology. 'Now, with real scientists exploring the reality, we can ask what are the real possibilities, as well as the potential ramifications, of transforming Mars.'
Most astronomers agree that Mars could be turned into a little Earth, though it would take decades to achieve this goal and would require massive expenditure. But many scientists are horrified by the concept.
'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.'
Over the past months, astronomers have become increasingly confident they will find Martian lifeforms after decades of disappointment. Europe's Mars Express and America's two robot rovers, Spirit and Opportunity - which are all investigating the planet at present - have detected strong evidence that water, mixed with soil, exists in large amounts on Mars.
In addition, two different groups of scientists yesterday revealed they had found traces of methane in the Martian atmosphere. The gas is a waste product of living creatures and could be a byproduct of Martian microbes living in the Red Planet's soil.
It is the risk that terraforming poses to these sorts of organisms that outrages scientists, such as Dr Lisa Pratt, a Nasa astrobiologist based at Indiana University.
'It is very depressing. Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars - which I am increasingly confident we will find - we are talking about undertaking massive projects that would wipe out all these indigenous lifeforms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the Martian soil. It is simply ethically wrong.'
To terraform Mars, engineers would have to find a way of thickening its atmosphere, whose pressure is a hundredth of that on Earth. In addition, ways will have to be found to heat up the planet. At present its surface temperature can plunge to minus 60C and below.
However, both goals - heating and thickening - could be achieved together, say researchers. One idea is to build a large mirror, many miles in diameter, and place it orbit above Mars. This would then be used to focus the Sun's rays onto a polar icecap, melting it and releasing its frozen carbon dioxide contents. The carbon dioxide would then trigger greenhouse heating.
The alternative would be to construct plants for generating super-greenhouse gases - made of complex combinations of carbon, chlorine and fluorine, and which are thousands of times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. These would be built at strategic sites across the planet and should also trigger global temperature rises. Thickening the Martian atmosphere would also protect its surface from the ultra-violet radiation that bombards its surface and which would otherwise kill off most Earth-like lifeforms on the planet.
According to Dr Chris McKay - based at Nasa's Ames Research Centre in California and a participant in this week's terraforming debate - either method could provide the terraforming project with a crucial kick-start. With a thicker, warmer atmosphere, ice trapped in the Martian soil would melt and could be used to sustain agriculture. With plants and trees imported from Earth growing and producing oxygen, the atmosphere would become slowly more Earth-like. 'We should get serious about sending life to Mars,' McKay said.
Other scientists remain cautious. 'We now know Mars used to have an atmosphere, but it disappeared for reasons that are still unclear,' said Monica Grady, a planetary scientist at the Natural History Museum, London. 'If we restore Mars's atmosphere, we could easily find it disappeared again. We would have done some devastating things to the planet for a temporary effect. That is certainly not ethical.'
The point is backed by Pratt. 'If we find life on Mars, the philosophical implications will be profound,' she said. 'If it is unlike Earthly life and has a different genetic code, this will show that living beings evolved separately on two neighbouring worlds. Life is therefore likely to be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy.
'If it has the same genetic code, however, it will indicate that one planet must have contaminated the other - probably by rocks being blasted across the solar system following meteorite impacts. We may really be Martian in origin.
'Given the importance of these issues, we simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking,' she added. 'This is just not on.'
