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We have been going to space for nearly 40 years now, but it has always been for temporary stays in orbit. However, three astronauts have now moved into the International Space Station (ISS) for a four-month stay, marking the beginning of a decade and a half of a permanent human presence in space. The arrival of these three astronauts at the ISS on Nov. 2, 2000, sparked one NASA official to remark, "We're going into space forever with people first circling this globe, and then we're going to Mars...."
Why would we ever want to go to Mars? As pictures beamed back from planetary probes and rovers since 1964 have shown, Mars is a desolate, lifeless planet with seemingly little to offer humans. It has a very thin atmosphere and no signs of existing life -- but Mars does hold some promise for the continuation of the human race. There are more than six billion people on Earth, and that number continues to grow unabated. This overcrowding, or the possibility of planetary disaster, will force us to eventually consider new homes in our solar system, and Mars may have more to offer us than the photos of its barren landscape now show.
Recently, NASA probes have discovered hints to a warmer past on Mars, one in which water may have flowed and life might have existed. With fluvial evidence mounting that water may still exist in a frozen state on Mars, there are many who suggest that the human race could one day make Mars its second home. Such an effort to colonize Mars would begin with altering the current climate and atmosphere to more closely resemble that of Earth's. The process of transforming the Martian atmosphere to create a more habitable living environment is called terraforming
At the Astrobiology Science Conference earlier this year, scientists and science fiction writers -- from NASA researcher Chris McKay to author Kim Stanley Robinson -- faced off on the promises and pitfalls of terraforming Mars.
There are amazing similarities between the Martian atmosphere that exists today and the atmosphere that existed on Earth billions of years ago. When the Earth was first formed, no oxygen existed on our planet and it, too, looked like a desolate, unlivable planet. The atmosphere was made entirely of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. It wasn't until photosynthetic bacteria developed on Earth that enough oxygen was produced to allow for the development of animals. Similarly, the thin Mars atmosphere today is almost totally composed of carbon dioxide. Here is the composition of Mars' atmosphere:
95.3 percent carbon dioxide
2.7 percent nitrogen
1.6 percent argon
0.2 percent oxygen
This week�s launch of the Cassini space probe to Saturn sees another stage in the exploration of our Solar System. But the prime target of both Soviet and American probes in recent years has been Mars, which is seen as the most suitable planet for intensive exploration. NASA�s plans for a series of Mars missions (of which the recent Pathfinder and Global Surveyor missions are just the first) are expected to culminate in a manned landing sometime early next century. They have even longer-term plans, which has brought the SF term terraforming to public notice.
Originally posted by markjaxson
Could it be they want to send humans there to live in the future?
Originally posted by markjaxson
Now is this just a coincidence or is this widely know that they want to know more about life on Mars because they want the planet to be habitable for human life? Or have i missed this?
I mean this maybe a waste of time if everyone knows about this kind of technology/understand/possibilities , but its news to me.
Originally posted by markjaxson
We have expert's debating it....
Originally posted by markjaxson
All the evidence points to terraforming Mars...
Mars would be the perfect place for us to do this!
Originally posted by markjaxson
With our current technology its perfectly possible for us to send robots out and start terraforming Mars...
Originally posted by markjaxson
With our current technology its perfectly possible for us to send robots out and start terraforming Mars...
Originally posted by Der Kapitan
Needless to say terrafoming of mars is looooonnng way off. I, personaly, am not too keen on the idea of terraforming mars. We as a people are ever so destructive to our own environment that we shouldn't F-up another world. Having said that, mars appears "dead"- it has vitually no magnetic field. A magnetic field due to a molten core is thought to be essential to a viable world. This would mean that a system would be needed to be in place to continuously replenish an atmosphere that constantly is "bleeding" off. I think that would make it too costly to terraform mars and make it work for very long.
Originally posted by Der Kapitan
Yeah that is true to a point. My information came from a couple of sources, most notably- The Mars Mystery by Graham Hancock. Now I think alot of Mr. Hancock's ideas are misguided, but he does bother to contact scientists in hope to prove his agenda, anyway the planets Em field is thought to act like a shield against the onslaught of the solar wind and cosmic radiation that can rapidly errode the atmosphere of a given world. No Em field and the atmosphere of a world would "blow" away without a mechanism in place to replenish it. At least that's how I understood it, that may well be wrong, I would be very interested to see an alternate explaination.
[edit on 27-8-2004 by Der Kapitan]
I wasnt thinking about the effect of solar wind/Radiation blowing the atmosphere away. I was just thinking staticly. Guess I need to use those 3 brain cells I have left!
In fairness to the president, I did a little research and found the microscopic grain of truth in what he was saying. It turns out that there is, indeed, an abundant quantity of something called helium-3 just under the surface of the moon. Forget for a second that we still lack the technology to use helium-3 for anything except making your voice sound really high and squeaky. Thanks to nuclear fusion, helium-3 will someday be that long-envisioned clean-burning, limitless energy supply