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I was refering to the very nature of humans, and more generally life(changing their environments), and judging it probable, that if humans go to Mars, AND stay, terraforming will happen. Not because of of "Earth politics" but because martians themselves decieded to do it as Phobos put it.

Yes Hitler was a bad man, to make an understatement, but he was a man who got the chance to exploite the ignorant and weak masses, and to take advantage of the fragile political system of Germany at his times. Such evildoers is dependent on the weak and uneducated to get their mad ideas done. Now I'm not saying that the doers of the future will all be good, I'm just saying that people will be more educated and less likely to follow such madmen. Still, somethings will go wrong, will allways go wrong, but since some kind of democratic society should exist then as it does now, I firmly believe that "Hitler" is not the best example to put forward here.

Still the atmosphere on Mars will be a lot less dense than on earth, so I am not too sure about time scales here, but leveling a mountain should take quite a long time, even in a geological time frame.  It's what happens on Earth all the (geological) time, we only speed it up a little when we densen Mars atmosphere and heighten its temperature....change is not bad in my book.

That I think this is RIGHT to do is really my choosen PHILOSOPHICAL point of view.

There is an atmosphere on Mars NOW, nothing, so far, have made me believe that this atmosphere can not or should not be made denser and Mars is NOT gelogically dead either, just observe her smoothness in particular areas... 

Mars is isolated from Earth and will be for a long time, therefore any change, on Mars or of Mars, will be mostly to the benefit of a growing martian populace, who really would propagate that change themselves through a democratic society.

Ad astra! :angry:

Suppose we only try to raise the average temperature of Mars by a few degrees. This we could do by finding a way to densen the atmosfere to, let us say, 0.5  terran atmospheres on average. (NOT with a planetbuster... ). I propose we should add mainly CO2 initialy. I still do not see how this, scientifically, would destroy martian geological formations in any major way. This "aeroforming" or making of an atmosphere would benefit humans, yes, but I do not see scientific reasons against it, neither do I believe it would be detrimental to Mars and its geology. I just can not believe that the martian geological records will get destroy or harmed in any major way by doing this.

Now, if there is any life on Mars, it must be mostly extremofiles. They could surely take the extra CO2, so we would not harm, in any major way, idigenous life. There is extremofiles on Earth, so there will be extremofiles on Mars no matter how much we terraform or aeroform. So we would not be exterminating a "fragile martian biosphere", since any life there should be highly resilient.   
On the contrary, I suspect any martian life would benefit enormously from such aeroforming -(and be at an advantage compared to any terran life we would want to introduce)- leading to a heigthened "martian evolutionary rate". So the argument "if there is life, we can not terraform" is at best mistaken...     

Anyway, we can not sit back and observe the Universe unfold if we are to gain the ability to avoid planetbusters hiting Earth or if we want to reach for the stars. The solar system is our playground and Mars is our first testgame...

Mars should not, would not and could not be made into a "back-up" world for the masses of Earth, it would not be feasible to shift any of the billions of Earth too Mars...
Mars only heighten the survival odds for humanity as a species. So in going to Mars we become a multiplanet species. We just have to learn how to walk before we can learn how to run.

Mars will become the cradle of a new branch of humanity, but Mars will allways be Mars, uncomparable to Earth. No martian would ever seriously want Mars to become totally like Earth anyway.   
And we are NOT looking for a safe haven, we just want there to be a frontier for humanity to expand on, to relieve some of the pressure that is bound to be building up as Earth gets more and more "the global village" and uniformity descend upon us. We would terraform or aeroform Mars because it is essential for the continuation of humanity as a species. And it would be needed if we want to make all the other tools, of a spacefaring species, come about as well.

Ad astra! :angry:

We must not be afraid of "terraforming" Mars. Even if we love rocks, and Mars as it is "today", do not forget that Mars IS changing. Mars is geologically active TODAY. The Universe moves forward in continuous metamorphosis. Planets are not "pictures". Mars is not a museum piece. Even as I write this Mars grows in mass, added by falling meteorite debris and volcanos may be building up potential for some future blast. Some day a "planetbuster" WILL hit Mars and change the face of Mars drastically. The atmosphere will get much denser and average temperatures will climb above freezing. Then Mars will once again have a warm and wet climate for some million years.

We know today that Mars very probably harbours water in its regolit and polar regions. This water will one day melt, with or without our helping, and I can not see the difference, moraly, between "sitting back", and "giving it a helpful (for us and life in general) hand" . If we "aid" the Universe making Mars more to our liking, what could possibly be wrong with that? And I do not think anything we could do would be on a scale of a planetbuster, not to think that that would be in our interests; economically, scientifically or otherwise. I think our changing of Mars will be, on a human scale and most probably, fairly gradual. Mars will not "bleed" from a little greening, and a denser atmosphere and higher temperatures could, I believe, be introduced by moderate means, making "the scaring of Mars" tolerantly superficial. The geological change between now and after a "mild terraforming" would be insignificant I think. And humanity would gain the means to avoid "planetbusters" ...go forth to the stars or perish! :angry:

Note to how long it would take to "terraform" Mars:

Yes, we could talk about centuries before Mars is "terraformed" COMPLETELY, but I think surprisingly good results(for some people) could be achieve with in decades of an established, permanent, Mars base.   

I agree Byron, "iceteroids" would help the "terraformation" of Mars, but I suspect that the "martians" will have to rely on insitu resources for a long time. I also predict these insitu resources will be suficient to support the first periods of Martian civilization and "terraforming" efforts. ...think of the gains!

Ad astra! :angry:

Wherever humans go, they change their environment. Some times for the better, some times for the worse. Some day humans will live and work; have fun and make love; on Mars. They will raise martian children and build new martian cities. And in the course of doing so, they will change their newly adopted red world and make it more to their liking. That mean no hardsuits(in the short run, (after first permanenet base established), id est 10+ years?) and breathable atmosphere(in the long run, i.e. 40+ years?). This will expand the biosphere for all life, and historians will one day call it

. Just as sure as no environment is static, there will be change coming to the martian environment, with or without our help. It will be a question how influential humanity should become in the universe. Do we sit back and watch, or do we get in on the action? Do we rise to face new challenges or do we stay on earth and get exterminated by the next planet buster? I do hope that there will be a "human history of Mars" and that it will not become "just a repeat" of what has happened so far on Earth. Sane people should go to Mars, to show the universe that humanity can offer more than greed and injustice, and that humanity belongs between the stars, as a herald for all life; terran and martian life, or whatever life that we might stumble upon elsewhere in our solar system.

To me it is clear that leaving Earth, our home, will be synonymous with "terraforming" Mars, since all other destinations that we can reach will be more dependent on home world logistics and not adequatly selfsufficient to harbour an expanding colony. Sure, we will have outposts but Mars will be the New World for many martian years to come...

MS member 5473
Oslo, Norway

Ad astra!