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More potential help: Dr. Arthur I Berman wrote a really accessible primer on orbital mechanics called Space Flight (ISBN 0-385-02754-0) that you may find informative. (Well, it sure got ME started.)
Personally, I would like to see a government that has its hands in my dealings as little as possible. Let's make some good use of the Sunset Clause...feared by bureaucrats, hated by writers of self-serving laws.
It goes like this: once a law is enacted, it expires after a set amount of time. Laws that make sense will pass every year (or whatever) without problem. Troublesome laws will be rewritten year after year until they work. Stupid laws (read "most of them") will go down in flames and good riddance. Agencies set up "by law" will get booted off the public trough as soon as they are outdated. I think we'll end up with fewer laws, which would make for easier enforcement, and a smaller bureaucracy.
BTW, not to be TOO irrelevant, but can we come up with a better name than Duma? I appreciate the roots, but I'd hate to be on it and be called a Dummy ??? Even the Japanese "Diet" always seemed a clumsy name. (Who likes to be "on a diet?" Yes, I know it's different.)
Can you guestimate timetables for these? I suspect that even if we started terraforming today, we would have only a partially terraformed planet by the time I shuffle off the mortal coil. (And I am not old.) Additionally, colonization with an atmosphere or even a partial one would cost a hundredth of what it would otherwise.
Or do I assume too much? It seems that every colonist would have to be trained in the care and feeding of a pressure suit ($), supplied with one ($$), supplied with sufficient expendables and spare parts for it ($$$), and then the colonist PLUS all her equipment has to be lifted out of this 20-mile gravity well, and set gently down on the surface of Mars months later ($$$$).
True, we will affect the planet...but I don't think the change will be detrimental.
Hey, I had this idea while sitting in my Astro 1 class - since Venus has too much atmosphere (based on the surface pressure), and Mars has too little, couldn't we set up a space ferry that just looped ("cycled" seems to be the buzzword of the day) between the two planets (at whatever lazy interval and speed could be worked out to be economically attractive), scooping CO2 off the Venusian cloudtops and releasing it over Mars? We could even work out some clever thing like a big baggie to put it in and get it a lot closer to the surface before shooting it with a varmint gun; >pop< you've got a lot of CO2 that some hardy lichen or something could be converting into O2 for us mammals.
Sure, it'll take a long time, but I don't know where else we're going to get gases to terraform WITH. (Though my calc teacher likes to write "A MIRACLE OCCURS" when a student has forgotten something. I'm probably too new at this to get REALLY scathing with my sarcasm yet.)
BTW, Buzz Aldrin did some kind of publicity stunt-like thing acquiring the rights (or some such) to the Earth-Mars route... see http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16391.html for more info.
Well, here's hopin'...
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