Interplanetary Colonies

Terraforming Mars would require an enormous expenditure which would have no short-term prospect of paying off the investment. So who is going to pay for that? The density of the Martian atmosphere is about 15 millibars at the lowest levels, and that atmosphere is deadly poisonous to animal life. (For comparison, atmospheric pressure at sea level on earth is 1013 millibars.) That is not sufficient atmosphere to protect animal or vegetable life from solar radiation. To colonize Mars, people would have to live underground to protect themselves and their plants and animals from solar radiation. Your estimates are far too optimistic. It would take about 20,000 years to convert the CO2 using plant life, and there would still be an enormous and very expensive effort needed to thicken the Martian atmosphere to the point where people could life on the surface, because other gases (chiefly nitrogen) would need to be found somewhere else and brought to Mars. People being as they are, it is unlikely that they would willingly consent to generation after generation of sacrifice on a project which would not benefit them, or their chldren, or their children's children, or their children's children, etc.

The idea of the human species no longer existing doesn't bother me at all.



No.

Explain your reasoning?

The amount of pollution that factorys make would increase air pressure and certain gasses would create a greenhouse-effect on the planet. After the planets atmosphere is greater in pressure and heat and also self-sustaining, humans would start getting ice from asteroids in the asteroid belt and use it to add to the atmosphere and create rain. Plants like trees would be introduced to turn the great amounts of carbon dioxide into oxygen. And don't say that fuel is something they can't get. Mars' atmosphere has the key elements for rocket fuel and the ships first sent will have the capability to create fuel. Then, when the oxygen and air-pressure are just right, we will most likely introduce animals to see how they adapt. If they adapt just fine, we will go out, without space suits, and breathe the first fresh air in a few millennia. That is just a rough draft is terraforming. NASA's program came up with it.

The reason it doesn't bother you is because you are an average human, only thinking of now, and not then.

This is average, so don't think I am beating you up about being like that. I can say, though, that I do not wish to die until I know the human race will survive in this playground that God gave us until He decides to engulf it in a lake of fire (The end of the Universe.)

A meteor impact wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They were not intelligent enough to have become a spacefaring species to give themselves insurance against such a tragedy. Apparently, neither are we.

I will take the liberty of assuming that Pearly's reasoning is the same as mine. I'm not particularly concerned about the extinction of the human race because I don't see that our species is of any benefit to this beautiful planet whatever.

What Lustig said. I think that the human species overall is very destructive and I don't imagine that we will improve in millenia to come - even if we move house. We'd just wreck that place like we've wrecked this one. I don't believe that our lives, individually or collectively, have any inherent meaning that will be lost when we've all gone. We're minuscule dots in a vast universe that won't miss us at all.

You just made that all up in our head, didn't you? Where do your factories come from? What are you doing to use to make the Martian atmosphere more dense? As i've already pointed out, it would take 20,000 years or more to remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using plants to convert it. If you warm the atmosphere enough, the south polar ice cap will melt, and it's made of "dry ice," CO2. It's not just enough to have oxygen in the atmosphere. If the CO2 levels are above a certain point, it doesn't matter how much oxygen you have in the atmosphere, it's still going to be poisonous to animals (including humans) who evolved on this planet. You really need to go back to school on this. You really don't know enough about Mars and the conditions there to be making your grandiose statements.

You don't know enough about Mars to be making your grandiose statements, you need to go back to school and to actually learn about Mars, and to learn basic things such as that CO2 is a poison for animals (including humans) that evolved on this planet if it is present in a high enough concentration, no matter how much free oxygen there is in an atmosphere. Truly, you're living in La-la Land. You're just making this up as you go along.

Thanks to the title of this thread I've had this stuck in my head all day. I'd forgotten that it was the Carpenters:



(This was the short version - I guess they thought it might take a while to get their message out there... )

The song was originally done by Klaatu, in about 1975.

Here's the Klaatu version:

The Carpenters' version is the one I remember from when I was a kid. I don't think I've heard the Klaatu one before.

There is more than one version at Youtube--that's the short, "official" version. Here's a longer version:

Shoals of dead fish float on the lakes,
but Uncle Sam's on Mars
And science is making the same mistakes,
but Uncle Sam's on Mars
No one down here knows how to work the brakes,
but Uncle Sam's on Mars

Uncle Sam's on Mars, Uncle Sam's on Mars, Uncle Sam's on
Mars, he's on Mars

Layers of smoke in the atmosphere have made the earth
too hot to bear
The Earth might be a desert soon, America has left
the Moon

Uncle Sam's on Mars, Uncle Sam's on Mars, Uncle Sam's on
Mars, he's on Mars

He's digging for dreams in the red sand
He's got his bucket and spade in his left hand
He's digging for dreams
He's looking for life

Ignorant pos......

And of course, you're a brilliant piece of **** who has all of the answers, right? My little dog knows more about Mars than you do, Gunga Dim.