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Back after so many months...

I will support the Revolution, though not without reservations. Overthrowing a colonialist tyranny is a worthy cause; however, isolationism, even Martian isolationism, isn't. The Mars liberationists must make an appeal to their brethern on Earth, opressed both by Islamic reactoinaries and American militarists, an appeal to join them in revolt against opression and for direct democratic control over their destinies.

Even if the revolution on Earth would fail, a free Mars could give its support to the Earther masses, help them to re-organize and to fight for the same goal - not only planetary sovriegnity, but true democracy and overthrowing the opressive generals, beurocracts, mullahs and corporations.

Mars must carry the flag of true freedom and mass democracy (including democratic control over the economy), or it will be isolated and will, eventually, be outnumbered and out-produced by the forces of tyranny.

I don't think that a government of any kind should have an official policy regarding religion; the two extreme examples of governmental religious control are the USSR (which outlawed religion) and Iran (in which Islam is the law), and both were/are (The USSR was, Iran still is) ruthless dictatorships.

Religion is a personal thing. As long as one's religious practices harm no other, he or she should be left alone to worship his or her God/ess/es. This is the essence of democracy - freedom of faith, of thought and of religious practice.

A government should stay as far away from religion as possible, for the good of its own citizens. Governments exist to deal with practical things, and only cause harm when they start to impose a religious belief/disbelief from abouve. We should bring our religions along with us to Mars, but try to leave dictatorship and Big Brother behind.

How could a nation *own* a planet? By what right could they declare that it is thiers, the whole planet? Yes, if an earth-based government will build a colony on mars, it could claim ownership over it. But the *entire* planet? This is simply imperialism. IMHO, it kinda of defeats the porpuse of the Mars Society to devide Mars between Earth nations or to have one or more nations single-handidly claim ownership over unsettled, unterraformed tracts of Martian soil for the purpose of future exploitation. Such acts could possibly lead to colonial wars on Mars: assume that the USA, for example, says that the entire Marineris (sp?) region belongs to it, What would the American colonists do if a chinese landing module will land in a claimed area, far away from any other colony? shoot it down? Take over the new colony? Remember, this is not the early 1700's in North America; these are the 2000's on Mars. We should try our best to avoid such conflicts; if Mars will just become another Earth, torn by warfare and hatered, it will do the Human race no good.

Until Mars could support itself independantly of Earth, it should be governed by an international body which should be regulated by an international treaty. Once Mars could possibly be intependant, it should be. By that time, Mars will belong to Mars.

Bringing projectile weapons and high explosives to a pressurized enviroment is not recommended. Even if the outer walls/hull of the habitat will be strong enough to prevent breaching and explosive decompression as a result of impact by a stray bullet, there will be too many machines critically needed for survival around that could be damaged in a firefight. There are enough non-lethal or non-projectile weapons available today that projectile weapons will not be absolutely nescery.

If the corporations will colonize Mars, it will be more along the lines of C rather than anything else; No, there will be no natives to enslave, but the motives behind the colonization would be those of economical profit and gaining power rather than scientific knowledge of the "good of Mankind. And belive me, once we will reach the technological level which will allow a Mars mission or colony to be profitable (even if it will only be from media rights, merchandising and so on), it will only be a matter of time until someone such as Bill Gates will try to get his hands on this profit.

I suppose that the question of what the face really is would remain open until Cydonia itself will be explored throroughly. Ofcourse, if you belive that someone is already hiding something concerning it, you can't be sure that they'll give you the truth when they'll explore it...

And, from the ground level, the face will probably look like any other hill - it's quite big. You'll have to see it from abouve in order to see it's features. Assuming that it's actually artificial.

Or it could be just an optical illusion, just as the "canals" were. The Human mind seeks familiar patterens in everything. That's why we have arranged the randomly-placed stars into "constellations".

No one could know what the face really is until someone actually lands there and starts exploring.

Shaun Barrett, thank you for pointing out that the theory about the Martian soin being highly oxidant is not proven do far. Yet, I find it difficult to believe that anything lives on the martian surface, atleast not in the upper layers of regolith; even if the soil is not oxidant, Martian surface conditions are far from anything comfortable for life: extremely high radiation levels, extremely low temperatures and nearly no atmospheric pressure. If anything lives on Mars, it lives IN mars: either frozen in the permafrost/cryosphere (which term is correct?) from times when Mars was more hospitable, or living in hot water somewhere very deep under the surface where the heat allows liquid water to exist. And this might be the strongest argument against terraformation or even long term colonization: in drilling into the permafrost in order to gain water (or in heating Mars in a way which might someday cause the permafrost to melt), aren't we risking whatever life that might exist there? (or worse, aren't we risking contamination by whatever lives there?). This is why we need to get conclusive evidence regarding the exsitance of life on Mars before going there (hopefully, there will be no life there; otherwise we might have "moral" problems with the colonization project).

Peter Pensive, I did not mean to offend anyone on any military force; And I agree with you that military development was one of the main driving forces behind the space industry (especially since rocket technology used to launch objects into space was based on the technology intended to launch nukes into the enemy's territory). What I meant was that beurocracies have a tendancy to be inefficient by definition; Every military has the more intellient, educated part and the less intelligent, more paper-pusher part. Both parts are needed in order that the military force will be effective. Also, an intelligent, highly-educated military force will be woprth nothing if the politicians it serves aren't THAT smart (no offence intended to any particular politician, however stupid politicians exist and are unfortunately too common for the good of the world ).

About the face... I agree with you that we should wait until it will be investigated from the ground before jumping into any conclusions. However I still believe that some corporation will eventually build a "face" and "piramids" even if the real ones are merely optical illusions, for the sheer tourism-attracting economical value (read: people pay big bucks to get off earth, and all they could find on Mars is a local-themed Disneyworld-wannabe park and several McDonalds and Mars sovineur (sp?) shops selling small Marts rocks and plastic miniatures of the Pyramids and the Face for extremely high prices. Now I start to understand the Red ideology...  ??? )

Ah! I knew it was not serious. My previous post explained why this was unlikely and stupid (but military forces aren't always THAT smart, not to mention governmental beurocracies...)

About the Face on Mars, there is no face there now, but who knows what future colonists will build in order to atract tourists... I already start to imagine a Martian theme park, complete with three-legged "Martians", a Face and pyramids, or even mini-canal boat trips. "Come to Lowell Land - Enjoy the thrilling flying saucer ride over the Face, ride the scenic canals of classical Mars and dance along with the three-legged Martians! And it's all only 30 minutes in the Maglev Train from Chyrse!"

Is this verified? and why should they do it? To prevent contamination? won't quarantine on a space station be enough for them, or is there any other reason for this?

It seems extremely stupid to me that one part of the USA government will launch a Mars sample return probe costing big bucks and another part of the USA government will shoot it down. Also, don't you think that the USAF Space Command's orders regarding things returning from Mars will be changed when and if a sample-return probe will be authorized by the government? of is it a non-US organization that threatens to screw over the US space program?

I suppose that this question will be settled once a permament Mars base will be actually built there. Treaties could be changed; The actual legal status would probably depend on who will finance the permament base; The more corporations involved, the more likely private individuals will be allowed to claim ownership over Martian soil. Also, it seems quite rediculus to me that a treaty disallowing private ownership of real estate on Mars will stil be in place at the time when actual large-scale civilian colonization will become reality. As long as you have a scientific station,  especially a multinational one, private ownership of land might not matter that much; once you'll get a non-scientific civilian colony, land ownership will become more of an issue.

Human nature won't change THAT quickly, if it'll ever change. I remember reading about people who thought (in the early 1900's) that the 20th century will know no war. Then came two world wars, a cold war, and countless smaller regional wars, and proved them to be wrong. Sure, some nations are more democratic or more pacifist than others, but war crimes, terrorism, slavery, corruption, dictatorship and fundementalism still exist and will continue to exist.

About the multinational corporations, you should refer to the Napster case and the several Microsoft trials to see how corporations behave. Considering the amount of money corporations will probably invest in the Mars colony, I don't think they'll let Mars slip out of their hands so easily. Corporations large enough to sponsor, or atleast take major part in mars colonization projects would have extreme political power. Just think of the quality of the lawyers and the amount of the lobbyists they could recruit for their cause!

Though Mars might possibly achieve independance without violence, it will not achieve it without struggle; if a military struggle will be avoided, a political and legal struggle will still take place. Too many people with too many power won't like the idea of losing ownership of their major holdings on Mars.